I saw Jay Reatard play at The Underworld in November. It was a strange gig, madly intense but over in a flash. I decided not to write about it at the time because I couldn’t quite decide what to say about it. The music was amazing but there just wasn’t enough of it. Jay whipped the audience into a frenzy and then wondered off stage abruptly and wordlessly. There was no encore and no explanation. We speculated on what could be wrong. Was he pissed off with the venue? To put it bluntly, The Underworld stinks of shit. Or was he pissed off with touring the UK in general? He opened the show by asking, ‘Have any of you guys ever been to Birmingham? Well don’t go there. It’s a shit hole.’ Looking back, I guess it was the fact that he was just so very weary.
Photo from Camden Underworld gig
The songs he did play were amazing. Oh It’s Such a Shame and My Shadow left us all bruised, concussed and euphoric but you could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.
When I heard, this evening, about his death at the age of 29 it all suddenly began to make sense.
His ‘about me’ box on Facebook reads ‘(Jay Reatard) is sick and tired of being sick and tired of you!’
It’s not a wonder that Jay was sick and tired, he was a wildly prolific artist, who began recording music at the age of 15. His live performances were filled with an unsustainable amount of energy and power. Jay Reatard was the embodiment of garage punk in the noughties and his genius for creating raw, powerful, torment laden music stands with the likes of Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain. He may not have received the recognition he deserved in his lifetime but his legacy will live on forever. RIP Jay Reatard.
Waiting For Something - a short documentary about Jay Reatard
Jay Reatard | MySpace Music Videos
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