Jesus Jones, The Wonder Stuff & The Clouds @ Palace Theatre, Melbourne (Fri 19 Aug 2011)

Jesus Jones tour poster It’s the second time I’ve been to the Palace in almost as many weeks, and the first thing I can tell you is there are considerably less people here than for Elbow a few weeks ago. The second thing I can tell you is that, at 36 years of age, I feel relatively young in this room.

In my younger days, I saw The Clouds at least a million times. If anyone reading this was in Brisbane in the early-mid 90’s you’ll understand when I say I felt like I was at Metropolis during their set. They played the hits, and they played them well.

The Wonder Stuff were, well, wonderful. At some point in the last 10 years, Miles Hunt has grown his hair back, and he looked resplendent in his black and white striped long sleeved T-shirt and overalls. Again, I was transported to 1992. Of course they didn’t play Dizzy (how could they without Vic Reeves?) but they did play Caught In My Shadow, and my all time favourite Wonder Stuff song, Size Of A Cow.

Jesus Jones were up next, and unfortunately (and I did wonder if this was going to happen), the crowd thinned a fair bit. Most of the audience were obviously 35+, and so, to completely generalise, have kids, mortgages and jobs. Late nights just aren’t what they used to be when you’ve got responsibilities.

They came out firing and were sensationally tight, and the sound was excellent. I was surprised that either Zeroes and Ones, Right Here, Right Now or International Bright Young Thing weren’t encores, as they played them around 2/3’s of the way through (IBYT was right near the beginning). Again, the crowd thinned a little more after those tracks. I was a massive fan of both the Doubt and Liquidizer albums, so hearing those tracks live was a real treat.

Here’s the Jesus Jones set, courtesy of setlist.fm, and there are photos below.

Viva la 90’s.

Main Set:
Who, Where, Why?
Move Mountains
International Bright Young Thing
Caricature
Real, Real, Real
Nothing to Hold Me
Get a Good Thing
Never Enough
All the Answers
Message
Right Here, Right Now
Zeroes & Ones
Bring It on Down
Info Freako
Idiot Stare
Encore:
Blissed