From the Jam – Powerstation, 6 March 2024: Review

From The Jam enter the stage to the sounds of Sixties Pop Art with Neal Hefti’s Batman Theme. Then proceed to Rip it up/ Get pissed/ Destroy! From anarchy in the USA to Anarchy in the UK.

The Jam were in the Top Three UK bands that dominated music in the Punk explosion. But Punk hardly described them accurately.

The band came together in the early Seventies, high school lads and just wanting to make a racket in good pub band fashion.

A recent interview with original bass guitarist Bruce Foxton touches on that. While they listened to Glam, Bowie and Power Pop, Motown and Northern Soul was just as big an influence.

What was also mentioned there was the influence of Dr. Feelgood in that pre-Punk period. Foxton specifically mentioned them in how these early Punk-era bands came to form a unit. Joe Strummer was another good example.

Paul Weller discovered the first Who album, the catalyst for their incendiary debut album In the City that launched the band to superstardom.

But not in the USA, as they remained defiantly and proudly British. It remains an unexplained idiosyncrasy, as the Kinks, another major influence on the Jam, did eventually become big stadium rockers there.

The roots of this group came when Russell Hastings lead guitar and lead singer, originally formed a band called The Gift with original drummer Rick Buckler.

Foxton came along a little later, Buckler left and the definitive From the Jam was formed in 2006.

Eighteen years later we are here now at their Final Tour: Greatest Hits.

Hey, Mama/ Can this really be the end? Or are they just stuck inside of Mobile with the English Blues again.

Along with Foxton and Hastings are Mike Randon drums, Andrew Fairclough keyboards, and Gary playing second guitar and percussion.

From the beginning, we experience the superb rhythm machine which give this classic music its monumental power and drive.

The Jam never came to New Zealand (or Australia) as Weller was averse to travel.

The bass influences, James Jamerson of the Motown Funk Brothers house band, and John Entwistle from the Who, for that heavy calibre string sound.

The thrill tonight was the same as watching the Ramones perform at this same venue sometime in the mid-Eighties.

Pretty Green, which starts proceedings, and that engine room hits top gear immediately.

David Watts, originally from the Kinks, lets the jangle guitar come up. The extended vamp is the rhythm as a pile-driver.

A Bomb in Wardour Street is all rhythmic pile-driving grunt. The A is atomic bomb.

All Mod Cons and To Be Someone is the great one-two punch which opens one of their greatest albums. Some sliding bass tones are added.

English Rose drops in a quieter Folkie number with Hastings playing an acoustic guitar just for one song tonight.

Mr. Clean is more an idiosyncratic English Pop song on record. Tonight, they give it a Punk make-over and Hastings breaks a string.

I don’t regard it a slight to call this a tribute band. Many I have heard are great and I tend to seek them out. There is no baggage and hurt feelings to contend with.

Just for the length of a show you can live in the glorious Present and feel empowered.

Covering Heatwave, written by Eddie Holland, Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier and first recorded by Martha and the Vandellas is always a risk for any band.

HDH can stand alongside Dylan, Chuck Berry, and Willie Dixon as the greatest and most literary of American songwriters.

The song reflects the political and racial turbulence of Sixties America. The assassination of Martin Luther King was the culmination. Cities were burning and riots were endemic. This before Vietnam protests really got going.

The Motown writers addressed this in code, with songs like Dancing in the Streets and Nowhere to Run. As Blacks have done since slavery days.

The original (and still best) version is styled as a hard Black Gospel number, with call-and-response backing singers.

The band tonight attack it in Rock’n’roll style. The drummer is especially rough and ready. Let’s give the drummer some!

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight is an epic Pop song. Always liked the lines I fumble for change/ and pull out the Queen, smiling, beguiling.

It could the opposite of God Save the Queen, but real life is more nuanced than ideology. The Pistols sang in riddles and conundrums, not slogans.

The band give this an extra kick and extend out, sounding like the Clash on their debut album.

As they do on several songs. Those top artists of that time were drawing from a common well-spring.

That’s Entertainment must be a key song for the Smiths and Morrissey, who has covered it. Brilliant from start to finish.

Lights going out and a kick in the balls/ I say, that’s entertainment. Shane MacGowan from the Pogues was also listening.  

Jamie and the Numbers from Wellington opened the show, and they were surprisingly good and effective.

Lead singer is Polynesian Jamie Musava and she sings like a R’n’B diva from America in the Sixties.

The Numbers have formed around three brothers, Mark Lerwill guitar, Geoff Lerwill keyboards, Craig Lerwill drums. I am presuming that Simon Bayliss plays bass. He has a British accent.

They play mostly covers tonight, and they perform like a classic Northern Soul club band from the UK.

Start with Leaving Here. A great early Holland-Dozier-Holland song first recorded by Eddie Holland. It’s also an outtake from the debut Who album, My Generation.

Great choice for this show, and immediately I like them.

There’s another Who cover, The Seeker, and they take on the Temptations Get Ready, written by Smokey Robinson.

It’s not all Soul and R’n’B. Stepping Stone by the Monkees also because a cult classic for the Sex Pistols.

Throughout all this they emphasise a prominent bass and drums rhythmic attack.

Their album on Spotify, You Don’t Love Me is well worth a listen.

From the Jam come back for an extended encore, and the energy levels rise, if that is even possible.

In The City brought them the attention, like the early Who. Power Pop at its best.

Eton Rifles is class-conscious and political. It could be regarded as Protest Folk, as sung in a big Trade Union hall.

The style of attack here snarls like the Pistols. There is a keyboard breakdown that Alan Price might have done for the Animals. The drummer explodes.

Quite brilliant as is the closer, Going Underground of course.

From the Jam live in the Glorious Present. Could this really be the end!

Rev. Orange Peel