Friday 22/06/07 The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Pastels @ Royal Festival Hall, London

Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown has been a resounding success, employing all the faculties of his own music (awkward heroes, uncompromising visions, kitchen sink verité, pastoral folk) to create an idiosyncratic celebration of great music. Iggy & The Stooges and Jarvis himself have been the main attractions but this; the first U.K showing for the epochal The Jesus & Mary Chain, has been supremely anticipated. Their appearance at Coachella saw Scarlett Johannson coo along with them onstage and later this year they’ll record a new album together, the first since the undercooked Munki in 1998. For those who saw them during their mid-eighties hey day, this is will be quite a moment.

Openers The Pastels are somewhat untouchable within the world of DIY indie twee, taking up a similar position to that of Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair: earth moving if you get them, shatteringly amateurish if you don’t. My personal indifference to them may seem contrary but they do fall into an easier sonic space than those aforementioned indie-Godheads; meandering folksy semi-epics that occasionally recall Mo Tucker-Velvets moments when their drummer sings and they retain a slow prettiness to their work even if it does sound deeply, deeply twee. Their legendary status (their leader signed the Mary Chain) is not in doubt but they don’t quite warm everyone up for what’s coming.

The Jesus & Mary Chain’s return was plagued by worry of potential fighting from the brothers and the question of whether this would be a true artistic return or simply a pension funding nostalgia tour. Their original vision, 60s Girl Group melodies buried under layers of fuzz and feedback, was perfected early on Psychocandy, arguably the greatest debut album of all time and easily their finest work. They never matched it and their later work, while still retaining some of the belligerent qualities of their early years failed to match up. Yet tonight, from the moment Jarvis Cocker introduces them into his Meltdown Festival as a ‘truly legendary band’, they go about proving him right.

The highlights are predictable but the whole set is reassuringly loud, confident and generally, just rocks. The venue doesn’t allow so much for the feedback to reign supreme and instead, we get to realising just how glorious those songs were. ‘You Trip Me Up’ turns into a baggy groove, ‘Darklands’ into a cyclical, dreamy nightmare. The two most memorable moments are expected but no less magnificent for it. ‘Some Candy Talking’’s pastoral-Velvets pastiche is gorgeous but ‘Just Like Honey’, revived by Lost In Translation, is just immense. It has little to it but the delivery, restarted twice, retains all of its bewitching loveliness. ‘Never Understand’ and ‘Reverence’ also make appearances and just kick the speakers to pieces, the conviction of this improbable reunion never in doubt once. One new song, provisionally called ‘All Things Must Pass’ is perhaps closer to the more serviceable later work but still, the songwriting is there. They’ll never match Psychocandy, few will, but this show is a testament to their ability to perform a show of power, fire and lustre.