Jesus and Mary Chain jam fans in stunning set

STEVE GERTZ/Daily The singer for Jesus and Mary Chain wails into the mic at Friday's concert.

Steve Gertz

Daily Arts Writer

Clutch Cargo's in downtown Pontiac exploded with clouds of dry-ice smoke and a massive squall of electric guitar-guided cacophony this past Friday, as The Jesus and Mary Chain and openers Mercury Rev bestowed mutual blasts of noise upon a packed house.

While both acts are quite notorious for their inclusion of interludes of brain-warping guitar noise into what might otherwise be traditional rock/pop formulae, they have also achieved a high standard of quality and originality in the music world.

The Jesus and Mary Chain have been around for a while. Starting out in the early eighties, they sent tidal waves through the underground music scene with their debut album "Pychocandy." "Psychocandy" wed the structural styles of influences The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys and buried them underneath blankets of barn-burning guitar noise.

While JAMC have never quite outdone "Psychocandy" in terms of artistic innovation, they have applied the same three-chord approach to a consistently good series of albums that substitute the high noise quotient for a more astute pop sense.

Similarly, Mercury Rev roared into early '90s with a raging wonder of an album, "Yerself Is Steam," whose idiosyncratic psychedelic landscapes of harmony and noise placed them in conjunction with critically lauded contemporaries My Bloody Valentine and The Flaming Lips.

But whereas The Jesus and Mary Chain have never really evolved past its original invention, Mercury Rev have virtually reinvented themselves with every subsequent album. From the sonic meandering of the band's debut to the gentle string and woodwind-laden tapestries of its latest masterpiece "Deserter's Songs," Mercury Rev have never disappointed, but just keep getting better and better.

Entering the stage immediately on the heels the first opening band, Elevator to Hell, Mercury Rev opened its show with "Endlessly" from the band's new album, and immediately flowed into "Holes," another new song.

While the recorded versions of both of those tracks sparkle with strings and horns, the life performances moved into the traditional guitar/bass/drums rock format for the show. Band flutist Suzanne Thorpe was missing from the lineup. And although twin keyboardists helped compensate for the absence of orchestral textures that Thorpe lends to the music, her presence was sorely missed.

That did not stop Mercury Rev from bringing down the house, though. The new material was just as convincing live and served as a warm introduction to a series of classic Rev tracks, which were executed in true epic brilliance.

"Carwash Hair," "Frittering," and "Chasing a Bee," from the band's first album were fleshed out in gorgeous fashion by singer/ guitarist Jonathon Donahue and lead guitarist Grasshopper. Each of those songs reached the 10 minute point and climaxed in an orgasmic display of wall-of-sound guitar pyrotechnics.

Melodies weaved in and out, howling feedback surfaced here and there, understated vocals held it all together and, by the end of Mercury Rev's abbreviated 45-minute set, the audience was truly in awe. It was obvious to all that Jesus and Mary Chain had a tough act to follow.

And, alas, it was a challenge that they were not up for.

Starting things off with "Snakedriver," a track from the soundtrack to "The Crow," JAMC went straight for the jugular but came up empty-handed.

Most of the necessary components were there: the charging drums, the pulsating basslines, the bluesy rhythm guitars, the too-cool-to-actually-sing vocals of Jim Reid, and, of course, the deafening feedback screams. But, like Mercury Rev before them, JAMC was suffering from the absence of a key member: Jim Reid's partner in crime, guitarist/singer/songwriter/brother William Reid.

JAMC playing without William is like The Rolling Stones playing without Keith Richards, it just doesn't sound the same. While the circumstances surrounding his absence are unknown, Reid and his criminally tuneful lead guitar lines are an irreplaceable component of the band's music.

Second guitarist Ben Lurie did do a remarkable job of filling William's shoes, but the songs just didn't sound quite the same.

But that's not to say they sounded bad. Classics such as "April Skies," "Head On," and "Sidewalking," from the band's early days, were mixed in with newer gems like "I Love Rock And Roll" and "Virtually Unreal" and, together, pulverized the audience like a sonic bulldozer fueled by sheer volume.

The highlight of JAMC's set came at the end, during the encore, when Mercury Rev's Jonathon Donahue joined the band on stage for an extended version of "Reverence," an industrial-strength tune that features the line "I wanna die like Jesus Christ." Always a live treat, the song's infectious bass-line/drumbeat combination practically had the audience doing calisthenics.

At about midnight the lights came on, the smoke cleared, and the eardrum-warping noise faded into silence. Absent bandmates aside, JAMC and, especially, Mercury Rev had put on memorable performances that sent audience members home with smiles on their faces and a loud, seemingly incessant, ringing in their ears.

09-28-98