Has it really been twenty years since Jesse Malin released his debut album The Fine Art Of Self Destruction? That's what my calendar says. But then why is that record still so vital and so relevant today? Because, like all great rock n' roll, it's both timeless and of its time. Imagine a cocktail made up in equal parts of Mike Ness, Nikki Sudden, Bruce Springsteen and Mike Scott with a dash of Johnny Thunders and Frank Sinatra...
To celebrate that two-decade milestone, Jesse Malin has embarked on a tour where he performs the whole album in sequence... sort of. He peppers the set with other tunes of his as well as a few covers, and some great anecdotes in between songs.
Highlights of the evening include Malin's performances of Brooklyn and the Replacements' Bastards Of Young, which he sang from the crowd, like a remnant of his punk-rock days, when there was no barrier between the artist and his public. But really, the whole performance was a tour de force. The band found the perfect balance between tight and loose, like The Rolling Stones in their heyday: wonderfully shambolic, on the verge of collapse, but but still on point, in sync at all times. And that's as good a description of Jesse Malin as one can think of. Professional punk, literate dunce, sober junkie, poet, entertainer, clown and undertaker. The essence of rock n' roll.
