{"id":126,"date":"2015-03-13T23:47:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T12:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/?p=126"},"modified":"2019-05-09T19:57:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T09:57:31","slug":"jesus-jones-corner-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/2015\/03\/13\/jesus-jones-corner-hotel\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Jones @ Corner Hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A headline in a fan-based publication, the Jesus Jones Report, once blared \u2018Jesus is bigger than the Beatles\u2019 \u2013 a pretty outrageous and contentious claim but a reflection of a level of self-belief that is entertaining to say the least. So when the text came through asking me to review a show at the Corner Hotel by seminal 90\u2019s UK pop rockers Jesus Jones, I hesitated for a split second. Not because I didn\u2019t like the band. Truth be told, a handful of their hits, I really rated. With classic songs like \u2018Right Here Right Now\u2019, \u2018Real Real Real\u2019 and \u2018International Bright Young Things\u2019 having been so intrinsically linked to my youth and these songs only remaining sacrosanct up until the point the illusion is shattered by a lacklustre performance. Basically I didn\u2019t want to set myself up for disappointment but as they say: \u2018if you don\u2019t go, you\u2019ll never ever know\u2019.
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As soon as I arrived at The Corner Hotel, I checked out the merchandise desk, the financial lifeblood indicator of any tour. I\u2019m always interested to see just how creative the promoter and band have been in seizing all the possible avenues to extract the punters hard-earned. The merch girls proudly inform me that all Jesus Jones merchandise \u2013 t-shirts, tour posters, limited edition re-release CDs, etc had completely sold out for the rest of the tour. That\u2019s a very promising sign. The band must be well pleased.
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A crackly recording of a friendly old country song blared through the PA.. Through the haze of the country twang, I could distinguish some of the words.
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\u201cI found a friend in an alley in St Joe, Missouri\u2026.I gotta thank you Jesus Jones…I was on the outside of nowhere, and I\u2019d forgotten how to care\u2026 a humble man reached out his hand and he said \u2018Walk with me son\u2026 I\u2019ll help you be a man…hell, I walked a little straighter with Jesus Jones by my side… I didn\u2019t even need the bottle\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the intro tape fades, the red curtain swiftly parts and there they are, pumped and raring… the bass player and keyboardist bouncing in laddish anticipation. The band lurch sharply into the show opener, the first track off their biggest selling album 1991\u2019s \u2018Doubt\u2019. Even as the opening bars of \u2018Trust Me’ ring out there is a huge roar of appreciation and punters surge forward quickly to fill the void down the front.
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After the one-two knockout punch of \u2018Trust Me\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Who? Why? Where?\u2019<\/em> Mike Edwards addresses the crowd. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018Doubt\u2019 \u2013 go to woah tonight. Thank you for coming along. Great to play for you and lovely to be in your beautiful city\u201d.<\/em>
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Looking not a day older than he was back in the early nineties, founding member and lead singer Edwards quips: \u201cIf you could\u2019ve seen all these guys crashed out on the couch earlier, still suffering the jet lag. Man, it made me realise how things might have been a whole lot different if I\u2019d had a crystal ball back then when I wrote this next song. Perhaps it might not have even got written! You might know it. It\u2019s called \u2018International Bright Young Thing’\u201d.<\/em>
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If what Edwards says is in fact true, the boys are showing no sign of fatigue here, except perhaps when Edwards fluffs the second verse. The guys are absolutely on fire. Keyboardist Iain Baker looks genuinely incredulous at the audience reaction to tonight\u2019s performance \u2013 his face permanently contorted during his keyboard parts. Mike ribs him good-naturedly at one point in the evening saying that although most of Baker’s parts involve just pressing one note repeatedly, he still is the only one among them to have had the honour of gracing the front cover of Keyboardist Magazine. Huge cheers ensue from the t-shirt brigade down the front. Baker responds in kind by doing his best \u2018Bez\u2019 impersonation from Happy Mondays \u2013 dancing maniacally during any parts of the show where he isn\u2019t required to be at the keys.
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Jesus Jones has the most energetic bass man in the business. It was amazing to watch the Al Doughty\u2019s frenetic high kicks off the brow of the foldback monitor. Drummer Gen (now back with the band after an extended seventeen year hiatus) and second guitarist Jerry De Borg, by comparison, appear the quiet achievers of the bunch. They too sweat buckets as they relentlessly power the pulsating beats and counter riffs, insistently driving the band headlong through the high energy set.
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Personal highlights were hearing \u2018Right Here, Right Now\u2019, \u2018Real Real Real\u2019 and \u2018Welcome Back Victoria\u2019 which they played in a brilliant extended version. Just glorious to hear in the flesh.
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The show seemed to hit another high when they presented \u2018Stripped\u2019 in a new guise. The punters down the front went into overdrive. From that point it was on for young and old. The more ginger spectators took a few cautionary steps back as the moshpit sidled waywardly from one side of the stage to the other.
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The band were obviously quite moved by the sight of this reaction and at the song\u2019s close Iain approached the stage lip and bellowed \u201cYou lot are the best #$%@!*& audience of the WHOLE tour… How #$%@!*& good was ‘Stripped’??? That was insane!\u201d<\/em>
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The hits just kept coming after that with the band taking only a short sabbatical before returning to tear it up again for the two final songs of the evening, \u2018Someone To Blame\u2019 and the very first single of the band\u2019s career, a take-no-prisoners rendition of \u201cInfo Freako\u201d.
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As far as the audience were concerned the band could have kept playing all night but by now the boys were well and truly jagged and lagged.
Within minutes of finishing up, they were all out graciously pressing the flesh, signing CD’s, shirt backs, setlists and posing for photographs with fans. The dozen or so diehards who hung around on the off-chance, were made up.
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I managed to snaffle a copy of the setlist which they all signed \u2013 each member adding a quick sketch of their instrument of choice. An absolutely brilliant night. One for the memory banks but one which so easily may not have happened if I\u2019d chosen not to take the punt. Well pleased I did. If you ever get the chance to catch them when they next return, be sure not to pass this band up.
And in the words of the crackly intro tape… you may well indeed find yourself \u201cwalking a little straighter with Jesus Jones by your side\u201d
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Jesus Jones Set List
<\/strong>Trust Me
Who, Where, Why?
International Bright Young Thing
I\u2019m Burning
Right Here, Right Now
Nothing to Hold Me
Real, Real, Real
Welcome Back Victoria
Are You Satisfied?
Two and Two
Stripped
Blissed
Bring It on Down
Zeroes and Ones
Move Mountains
Never Enough
What Would You Know?
Idiot Stare<\/em>
Encore
<\/strong>Someone To Blame
Info Freako<\/em>
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Despite being totally sold out on the tour, the band inform me that all of the tour merchandise is still currently available from their website but that more affordable links to closer distributors will also be posted on their Facebook page.
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\nfacebook.com\/\u2026
\n<\/a>jesusjones.com
\n<\/a>and you can read all about (and order) the incredibly thorough expanded back catalog now on
\nhttp:\/\/www.superdeluxeedition.com\/news\/jesus-jones-3-disc-deluxe-reissues
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One for the memory banks but one which so easily may not have happened if I\u2019d chosen not to take the punt. Well pleased I did. If you ever get the chance to catch them when they next return, be sure not to pass this band up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatgigs.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}