Formed from the ashes of the rock n’ roll revival groups Black Moses and Thee Hypnotics, on paper the Jim Jones Revue shouldn’t offer the ecumenical rock n’ roll resurrection that they promise – after all, the members are all over 30 if not forty and the type of raw MC5 meets Jerry Lee Lewis rock n’ roll skulduggery isn’t a new scene being created by NME and Pitchfork tastemakers. Of course, that’s the greatest proposition to fans. It’s raw, it’s loose, it’s real and there’s no artifice about playing knee trembling rock n’ roll with the gusto Lucifer provided John Lee Hooker while tapping him on the shoulder at the crossroads.
Tearing on to the corner stage after a howling set by Kim Salmon in his Precious Jules guise, the crowd is littered with Melbourne rock n’ roll cognoscenti, including cartoonist Fred Negro who will end up his birthday celebrations terrorising Scott Asheton of The Stooges and Barrie Cadogan from Primal Scream by wanting to draw their penises for his Pub Strip. Indeed the mood is celebratory with many of the musos and crew who are on the Big Day Out travelling circus using their day off to check the band out in a pub environment.
Taking to the stage clad in his finest Teddy Boy drapery, front man Jim Jones is a whirling dervish, flailing around on stage and duck walking in brothel creepers, while guitarist Rupert Orton channels Bo Diddley and Kid Congo Powers tearing through nouveaux classics such as ‘Rock N Roll Psychosis’ and ‘Burning Your House Down. In a world where so much rock n’ roll performance is dependent on psychedelic and nu-shoegaze premeditated on-stage detachment, there’s something thrilling about watching a band throw their all in to a show. It’s knowing that no review from the other side of the equator or Youtube footage can replicate the manic feeling of Jones shaking his sweat off on to the front row or veins pulsating in his neck as he dives to his knees with the microphone stand.
A relatively short set appears a nevertheless deserving reward for the crowd, yet the band barely take a two minute breather, let alone change their sodden shirts before returning to the stage for a blistering rendition of Little Richard’s ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’. Joined by the respective saxophonists from The Stooges and Primal Scream, this is a balls to the wall good time ending for a band that makes rock n’ roll revivalism nothing studied and affected, merely a howling good time.
– Jim Murray
