As an English major, I had my fair share of run-ins with words that had seen their meaning warped or distorted (if you're a positive person, you'd call it evolution). Apparently the great music “tour” has gone that way. The oddity of a three-location tour separated by roughly five hours of driving time aside, I headed over to Amoeba SF for Jay Reatard's in-store. If you live outside California, chances are you haven't experienced the intimidatingly large space that is Amoeba. I say “chances are” because among TMT's readership these stores can be something of a tourist attraction. In any event, where most stores are packed so tight it feels like shopping in a taco truck, Amoeba luxuriates in its expansiveness and boasts a respectably sized, raised stage.
The main virtue of seeing Jay Reatard used to be that the sound quality would be superior, but with the cleaner production on Watch Me Fall that's no longer the case. This show in particular ended up being noticeably worse, as Reatard blew something out a few songs in. The other selling point I used on the uninitiated was that almost anything (e.g. technical difficulties) could piss Reatard off and lead him to “act a fool.” Success seems to agree with him though, and they just turned everything up to ear-bleeding levels to compensate.
So should you go see this new, mellower Jay Reatard? Of course you should. He still tears through sets as though he got a bonus for turning us out early, and watching him run around trying to switch guitars and plug in as fast as possible would be almost comical if I didn't know he was trying to cut us off before we could start clapping. Stephen Pope is still the relatable face of the band, mouthing the words and making some hilarious expressions throughout. You're never going to get a “cozy” Jay Reatard show, but this was probably the absolute closest he'll come to a Kurt Cobain-setting-up-candles-around-you moment. He took me and at least one extremely flustered kid by surprise when he handed him his guitar during the finale and encouraged him to add some noise to the freakout. If he keeps this up, “Jay Reatard live” might evolve to mean something other than “punches kids.”
[Photo: Caitlin @ Amoeba SF]