Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

I just paid £30 to watch a pot-bellied old guy stagger about, drenched in sweat, with his shirt and fly open, hollering, drawling, and slurring incoherently, downing cans of Stella and spitting fountains of flobber all over the shop. It was fucking brilliant. Yes, I have finally witnessed a show by the Jesus Lizard. I can now die happy.

There will have been many in the room who, like me, never expected to have this experience. If the announcement of a new album after a quarter-century break seemed to come out of nowhere, the announcement of UK tour dates off the back of produced excitement of a fever pitch. Of the eight cities on the list, Leeds has, over the last decade or so, proven itself to be the home of a new wave of noise heavily, and unashamedly inspired by the band, and the 90s noise rock scene more broadly. Try talking about Blacklisters without mentioning the Jesus Lizard. It was hardly a shock, then, when tickets for this date sold out in three minutes. The biggest shock – for me, and likely many others – was actually bagging a ticket. There weren’t many resales, either: people really, really wanted to make this.

It’s perhaps hard to overstate the significance of the band. The four-piece, formed in 1987, were absolutely pivotal in defining the noise rock sound which emerged from Chicago, platformed by Touch and Go Records, but not even a split release with Nirvana in ’93 – when Nirvana were absolutely massive in the wake of Nevermind – would see them connect with a wider audience. There’s a fairly obvious reason for this: there simply wasn’t even the vaguest hint of commercialism or accessibility about their raw, volatile sound, and not even signing with Capitol could elevate them above cult status.

There’s always the risk that seeing an act way, way after their heyday will be a disappointment, but not so the Jesus Lizard.

Following support act Carehome – a post-punk noise-rock hybrid with gloomy synths, textured guitars, and aggro vocals, pulling together elements of Tar, Kowloon Walled City, and Profane, among others, who were absolutely top-drawer – the Jesus Lizard arrive on stage punctually and David Yow introduces the band with ‘We are The Smiths… does anyone want their dick sucked?’ as they launch straight into ‘Puss’. The crowd goes nuts, and Yow flops face forward off the edge of the stage into the crowd before he’s raised the mic to his mouth. In a blink, he’s way towards the back of the venue.

Carehome

The band are so, so tight; it’s impossible to pick out a standout performance or track from a huge setlist: they’re perfectly cohesive, and with minimal gear churn out maximal noise, while Yow… well, he’s just deranged – and yet for all of the staggering, swaying, all the moments he looks like he’s tripping over his mic stand, like each time he leans into the crowd and places a hand on the head or shoulder of a fan in the front row like me might launch himself into the audience or simply topple forward, he doesn’t miss a line or a vocal cue. And the material from Rack sits perfectly comfortably alongside the rest of the catalogue in a set that’s relentless and consistent in quality and ferocity.

Between songs, David wants us to clap. And keep clapping, until the next song starts. For the majority of the set. We clap. David wants us to follow a call-and-response of ‘Fuck Trump’. We call back ‘Fuck Trump,’ because, well, it’s a sentiment we can all get behind. Fuck Trump. But it’s also like a sort of game of ‘David says’. He seems to enjoy it. And we all do, because fuck, we’re here in a 400-capacity venue in Leeds watching the Jesus Lizard.

the Jesus Lizard

Yow actually stayed on stage for the majority of the set, but keeps on leaning forward, placing a hand on a shoulder, or a head, as if testing the water for another lunge. Perhaps because of this, I was taken by surprise when, while standing about as far to the side of the stage as possible and in a space between the front and second row, he leaned forward, put his hand on my shoulder, and lurched forward. I had my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and no time to react, and he landed on my face and began to fall… people around me managed to react and preserve a distance between the man and the floor, and with some effort he was hoisted up and around and returned the stage – unlike a chancing stage diver shortly after, for whom the crowd parted. “Well that was fun” he was heard to mutter once upright and back on stage.

These are the kind of exuberant antics one may expect around a young band rather than one where they’re pushing sixty-five. Instead, Yow is dropping and pushing ten between verses during ‘7 vs 8’, before heading backstage, swaying, followed one by one by the rest of the band, with Mac McNeilly hammering out a blistering drum solo to bring the set to a close.

Fuck. Christ. Wow. We got what we came for alright.