My history with Jesus Jones extends all the way back to the late '80s when the cover of the Liquidizer cassette caught my eye at a Sound Warehouse. A minute or two at the listening station convinced me I'd finally found something I'd longed for—a heavy rock band that was just as equally heavy a dance band, while retaining melody instead of turning down the more Industrial routes growing more and more popular at the time. They brought the melody to the harshness that the Industrial bands I was also starting to discover seemed to lack. It sounded to me like it was truly dance music for rock fans, leveraging the tech at the time to build dense walls of sound around shiny pop cores.
I first saw the band in 1991 when I was reviewing their openers Ned's Atomic Dustbin both as a fan of that band and as an excuse to see the band I really loved headline. That era of the band's sound is probably my personal favorite, and last year I eagerly picked up a limited-edition LP of a 1990 show at The Metro—I literally waited for this full show to be released for years, always hoping that the smattering of live b-sides tracks recorded then might be released as a complete concert.*
But Jesus Jones isn’t a nostalgia act, and despite the fact that everyone probably knows “that one song” by them (“Right Here, Right Now”), the band has remained active at some level since their inception. Prior to the pandemic I had a chance to catch Jesus Jones play Chicago in 2019, and walked away convinced that the band had lost none of its spark, and somehow still managed to play like the 20-sometings I saw onstage decades prior. They're still a must-catch live act, if you ask me.
Jesus Jones was scheduled to come through town last year, but the show had to be postponed for logistical reasons. Luckily the band has sorted those issues out, and will be playing tomorrow, March 27, at Space in Evanston.
Portions of this post originally appeared here.
*Bonus! I found the actual preview of that Metro show!