The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion plays a low-key show that was anything but

The walls are draped in condensation, men are sweat-soaked, even the ladies are perspiring copiously, Jon Spencer’s black shirt is simply stuck to his lean frame, but the beat doesn’t let up. It goes on and on, three-piece organic, getting orgasmic, it really R-O-C-K-S! Famous place and history-noting performance to mark the April release of the band’s latest album, ‘Plastic Fang’. (It is all-natural, trust me, despite its title.)

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are on, what the mainman called, apologetically-cum-ironically, “a promotional tour” few days earlier but didn’t want to miss an opportunity to play a secret show in the legendary venue. And, almost on the dot at 10.30 pm, the three members push their way from the ‘backstage’ (which is across the auditorium – how humbling it must be!) and strap on their instruments.

From the opening salvo it is a rock of vintage quality that is supremely ageless. All decked in regulation black, The JSBE trade in basic, primal rock, stripped off of all the paraphernalia, just the rudimentss but the ones that enrich lives the best. There is no much verbal communication from stage as the songs are delivered without pauses, powerfully, drawing one in with force of true alchemists, delivering us from the straight-jackets of reality’s grind.

There is no menace in this music although imagery tends to get horror-y, but it is neither goody-goody, it simply is, music that gets you happily jiving/jumping/nodding and you can’t resist… There is just a handful of new tunes in tonight’s set and Jon, who hardly says a word during the show – apart exclaiming ‘Blues Explosion from New York!’ several times – the next single ‘She Said’ and the opening cut from the forthcoming album, ‘Sweet N Sour’, with its ferocious rocking, definitely grab the attention to equal fondness for the long standing favourites.

Jon continues the proud line of great frontman, in the best Elvis, Jagger, Bowie, Alice Cooper tradition by simply dominating the stage… But, of all named, he is the nearest to Presley as there is an incredible similarity of ‘mic-attack’. When the amps are switched off I can only think of paraphrasing the old Las Vegas battle cry of ‘The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has left the building!’ but only for a while; they’ll be back in April for a more normal-sized date at Brixton Academy.

Tour dates:

08 April – The Academy, Bristol
09 April – QMU, Glasgow
10 April – University, Manchester
11 April – Brixton Academy, London