JMC and Legos

The day after seeing that show at Brooklyn Bazaar, I was set on seeing the Jesus and Mary Chain. I had intended to get a ticket the previous day, but I ended up doing a bit too much shopping around various areas of Brooklyn that I had never been to before. On November 17th, the day of the JMC show, I went to Manhattan with some time to spare. I rushed to the Playstation Theater worrying the tickets would be sold out. Thankfully they were not. I was really excited for the show to start in an hour.

Since I had some extra time, I walked over to the Lego Store in Rockefeller Center. Despite having been to New York many times before, I had only been there once before in October when I was heading to the bus back to Pittsburgh. I didn't get to buy anything that time, but I had a few things in mind now.

a sci-fi serial character, a lycanthropic hippie, and a Warhol-esque actor

a little kid excited about Christmas (I didn't notice the lipstick), a yinzer tourist, and an artist inspired by Agata (Melt-Banana)

a henchman from a horror film who feeds victims to his hounds, a vampire housewife, and a cool rockabilly girl

I got to the store and picked out the things I had seen last time - some small seasonal/holiday sets. Then I saw the amazing little station where you could build minifigures to purchase. There were some unique pieces here, at least to me, like transparent green popsicles, a little Lego Oscar award, and of course a Lego version of the kind of New York tourist memorabilia shirts you see all over Midtown. I made nine figures, creating little backstories and stuff in my head. It was fun to play around with all the pieces, and I helped some of the other customers with finding the pieces they wanted if I had seen something like it.

I rushed back to the Playstation Theater. Unfortunately, my bag was so full of the Lego minifigure sets and some other stuff that I only got to get one of those seasonal sets - a discontinued wedding topper thing. It was pretty weird, but it was the last one in the store. When I arrived back to see the Jesus and Mary Chain there was a bit of a line. There was pretty intense security before entering the building; I had to empty my entire bag, Legos and all. It took a long time and made one of the security people angry. They got really concerned when they saw I had a camera, but I said that I had planned to leave my bag at the bag check, which I had thought was mandatory anyway. It ended up alright.

The inside of the Playstation Theater was huge - I couldn't believe how big it was! There were some Playstation 4s to test out, which I didn't get a chance to do. Even the bathrooms were pretty spacious. The actual stage area was pretty awesome. Just like everything else, it was quite large. I was able to get right to the front since it was still early. Nobody was really sure if there was an opening band, but it turns out there was. I don't think they were listed on the physical ticket.

The opening band was Mark Crozer and the Rels. I think I may have heard of them a long time ago. They were pretty cool, reminding me of the Soft Boys and other things that are sort of proto-Britpop. It was funny when he asked who was a fan of WWE before playing the song used by Bray Wyatt. I enjoyed this set, though it was just the beginning.

After a short break, the Jesus and Mary Chain appeared. The lights were really intense during their set, flashing and displaying their name. It was almost too much at times. The Jesus and Mary Chain opened the set with a song from their new album Damage and Joy, "Amputation". They played a lot of other songs from that album too. I had not heard the album until after the show, but the songs were good - hard and fast and not so edgelord-ish as "Reverence", which I can't believe they ended the set with. Even "Reverence" sounded good live. The Jesus and Mary Chain played a lot of the great older songs in addition to these new ones, stuff like "Cherry Came Too", "April Skies", "Some Candy Talking", and "Darklands", which was introduced as "a song we used to play a long time ago", a rightful way to introduce one of my favorites for sure.

For the encore they opened with "Just Like Honey", accompanied by another vocalist. They played "War On Peace" from the new one and closed with "I Hate Rock 'n' Roll", the first Jesus and Mary Chain song I ever heard from the first CD I ever owned, the American Records Sampler that came bundled with Comix Zone on Sega Genesis. It was a quite a set, emotions ranging from awe to joy to a sort of "really?"

Most of that "really?" was one large distraction. This also made the show more memorable. It might be the most memorable thing of the night. There was a woman who just sort of snobbishly pushed her way into the very front a little after the Jesus and Mary Chain had started. Thankfully I was able to get back to where I was right behind the first row of people. This lady shouted at the band the entire show about how cool and beautiful they were and sang along off-key to the songs. It was somewhat endearing. At a certain point, she put a bunch of drugs into a tote bag with a vinyl record and threw the bag onto the stage. The band just ignored her. I was surprised, though honestly somewhat glad, that the security didn't throw her out. They did confront her, but she somehow talked her way out of getting thrown out. I didn't understand it at all, but I am glad someone was so happy to be at this show.

wearing one of the JMC shirts when I got home

After all that, I found a ticket for the bag check which was quickly handed over to the rightful party. Then I bought some merch, two shirts and a CD, retrieved my own bags, and left into the bright Manhattan night. I was pretty happy. The trip back to Brooklyn was long, and that's fine. I would see John Cale tomorrow.