Jesus Jones

Sometimes it is easy to forget just how much music owes to individual bands. Mike Edwards was pretty insufferable during the early 1990s, but without Jesus Jones so much of what has followed may not have happened. Tonight, it is as hard to listen to 'Idiot Stare' and not think of how much the likes of Lostprophets or Hope of the States (R.I.P) owed to it as it was to listen to it in the first place. And if the likes of Pennie ex-Automatic thought they had the copyright on the role of mad keyboard player, they need to look at Iain Baker and think again.

Yes, time has not been kind to Jesus Jones. Edwards looks anorexic, Jerry De Borg looks like a miniature Gene Wilder and Baker has a frame now ill-suited to the bands mandatory white t-shirt. But the music - for all that Edwards apologises for his past excesses - has aged well. 'Who? Where? Why?' is a superb opening number, 'International Bright Young Thing' and 'Right Here, Right Now' could've been recorded at any time in the last five years and even later numbers such as 'Zeroes and Ones' have the crowd singing along. The climactic 'Info Freako' has, of course, been a staple for next to two decades, but is attacked like it is being played for the first time and the reaction is rapturous. I never thought I would say this, but Jesus Jones might just be one of the best live shows around.