The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pixel Grip, Tortoise, Smerz, e Kumo 99

Getting to see The Jesus and Mary Chain perform live recently was such an incredible experience. Although some of the controversy that they were met with when they first came out has certainly died down and seems a little tamer in this day and age, I think that their passion for performing still comes through on stage crystal clear.

Jim and William Reid's lyrics are just as incredible as they were before the band broke up, and The Jesus and Mary Chain made sure to play newer material as well as some of their old hits when performing at the Festival Cultura Inglesa when in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Their sound did seem a little out of place with some of the flashing strobes and fog, at least on some of their mellower songs, but it didn't dampen the experience of getting to see The Jesus and Mary Chain performing in the flesh at all.

I was especially grateful that they played two of my favorite songs, "Happy When it Rains" and, of course, "Just Like Honey." Jim Reid's vocals were every bit as powerful live as they were when I first heard the band back in the late 1980s, and it was great to get to see him and hear him putting his lyrics to life on stage.

I saw them as an opener, they were alright. Their set was an hour long and they took almost 40 minutes to set up, which wasn't great but I get stuff happens, there might've just been some weird issues.

I'm admittedly not a huge fan of their music but it wasn't unenjoyable. A good like half of the crowd was moving and seemed to be enjoying them.

Then after one of their songs the lead singer immediately started yelling at someone in the crowd for not paying attention, and demanded they leave. It was super uncomfortable, people were looking around super surprised and after that I've never seen a more dead crowd, it *really* killed the vibe.

The first time I saw legendary Chicago act Tortoise was at their spiritual home of All Tomorrow’s Parties. I couldn’t believe my eyes at the men gathered up there on stage: David Pajo of Slint, genius producer John McEntire, Eleventh Dream Day’s Doug McCombs, brilliant jazz player Jeff Parker....I could go on. The music on the band’s run of three untouchable albums – Millions Now Living Will Never Die, TNT and Standards – seemed so studio-anchored and complex that I thought it would be impossible to recreate those sounds for a live show. And indeed, as the band began the show it sounded too perfect: everything sounded as clean and crisp and layered as it did on record, a perfect mix of post-rock, jazz and electronics. Then it hit me: these guys are just total pros. I called them legends for goodness’ sake, they’re showing why and I doubted them? More fool me. So as the feedback-drenched national anthem wrangling of ‘Seneca’ gave way to its treated drums and tricky time signatures, and the cut and paste ‘Djed’ was somehow recreated by analogue instruments (I was sure that had been created on a computer) and the band continued to roll effortlessly through their catalogue I gave up wondering how this was happening and just enjoyed this singular experience. Being in the presence of legends is quite something: biblical-proportion doubts surround you before the veil is removed and you realise that some people are just amazing at what they do. That’s Tortoise.