The Jim Jones Revue - OPEN

It's difficult to write about this, the penultimate show in The Jim Jones Revue's 'Last Hurrah' tour, without delving straight into cliché. It's a gig that's saturated with old rock and roll tropes; gyrating pelvis', guitar solos on platforms and more blue scales than a chameleon in a Levi's store. When the stage first lights up and Jones comes charging out I'm a little sceptical. We've just been warmed up by John J Presley who, for me, hasn't been done justice by those gathered here, and who seems to be doing something dark and contemporary with his bluesy rock (He's back in Norwich with his band in January - check them out). In contrast, Jones and his quartet of seasoned rockers seem rooted in the time of their sound.This isn't, as it happens, such a bad thing, and my initial hesitations are swept aside in a tide of vintage distortion and thrashing piano. Jones grows into a more believable entity as the night ages. The frontman - slick roughness, growl and grizzle wrapped up in a waistcoat - moves from predictable entertainer to compelling performer at the point where the sweat sets in and the bravado stops tasting quite so artificial. Everyone looks more honest when they're damp. Songs like these live or die on their delivery and thankfully they're all served up with the necessary, crazy grunt. The band are a manic presence on stage, an eruption of showboating and rock-face, and despite flirtations with a certain dated cheesiness you can't help but crack a grin and throw some shapes under the high, illuminated arches of the OPEN hall. It's a party of 12-bar, battered ivories and ballsy howling, a chaotic arena of old-time beats that's as gleeful as it is bizarre. Even if you don't have an enthusiasm for this style, there's no denying that Jones and his men are putting on a stormer.To say that this kind of music is fading out of the public consciousness would be overstating things. Nevertheless, that this is very nearly the end of the Revue's journey lends something of a defiant cry to the cacophony, a triumphant roar of "Yeah, we were fucking here!" that you feel rippling through the crowd up until the end of the second encore. This is a sound that's falling out of time, rarely to be found in the mainstream but still beating it's greying chest in places like this. One day the bands of today will be winding down, maybe even playing these farewell shows, and I can't quite shake the sense that no one there will be having as a good a time as everyone who's shaking their tush here. So long, Jim Jones Revue. Thanks for the loud and wacky memories.