joe and i had the pleasure of catching JAMC's pre-festie warm up gig at the glass house on thursday night. it was a sloppier and more nervous performance (jim muffed up the opening lines to a song, the band had to stop and start over) and felt a lot rawer. dunno what happened in the next 24 hours hours, but they were a hell of a lot slicker at coachalla. JAMC definitely rated in the top 10 for me, possibly top 5. i'm still confused as to where all the distorsion went... the guitars were pretty damn clean, several of their songs had a surf vibe to them.
we also had the opportunity to catch !!! do an in-store show on thursday, at amoeba records. kinda weird to be rawking out between stacks of vinyl. the show was a riot, at times almost literally. the band was on edge because of the poor monitor mix that needed constant fixing. nic, the singer, finished off the show by running wild through the crowd/stacks and encouraging people to dance in the off-limits center ailse, much to the annoyance of security. these guys put on a great live show, can't wait to catch a full set from them at the club. personally, i'm more excited about them than i am LCD soundsystem (whose live show was just a tad underwealming at coachella - although fun, cleanly delivered, and a just a little pretentious).
