Tom Dunne: The Jam and a glorious era of scathing gig reviews
The Jam with Paul Weller were the subjects of a hard review for a New York gig. Picture: Chris Walter/WireImage
The art of the scathing music review is dead. This damascene revelation came to me as I lay in a Covid haze on the eve of what would have been my first ever solo show. Was this linked I wonder? If the show had gone ahead would the ‘scathing music review’ tradition have been revived?
These thoughts came to mind as I read a truly hateful review of a show by The Jam in NYC from 1980. “It might as well have been Deep Purple up there,” said the reviewer, Jim Farber. Even 40 years on, that hits hard.
