Saturday, December 18, 2010

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the Troubadour, 9/30/10

When I was younger, I would often lament the retirement of the bands I liked, thinking it must be as final as a TV show's cancellation.  These days, I've been around long enough to know that eventually they almost all come back (assuming they haven't died, of course).  The Jon Spencer Blues Exxplosion were no exception.  After going on hiatus in 2005, I finally got a chance to see them again at the end of September.

The first time remains one of my favorite shows ever, at Detroit Bar back in 2002, when the opening acts were Liars and some young start-ups called Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  Just incredible from start to finish, and the fact that JSBX played so much from Plastic Fang (number twenty-something-or-other on my best of the decade list) had a lot to do with that, for me anyway.  This time around they ignored it almost completely, only doing "She Said" during the encore, but my lack of familiarity with their other material did little to stifle my enjoyment of their barrage.  Taking nary a break between songs, the band tore through over an hour of music, Spencer himself constantly talking up the band.  It remains a crime that they never caught on the way some other, less worthy garage rock did, but they still throw it down with the best of them.

Photo by Melissa Esterby, LAist.com

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