Cap'n Jazz, Electric Ballroom, gig review: A glorious, gut-spewing funeral procession

28 years after their first ever show, the Chicago outfit play together for what may be the last time ever

Magnetic: Cap'n Jazz vocalist Tim Kinsella (Joey Tobin)

“We played our first show in October 1989 and, barring a miracle of money, this is going to be our last.”

So there we have it. If this really is the death of Cap’n Jazz, then what a funeral procession tonight was – one of sublime disorder, guttural emotion and gut-spewing vigour (quite literally on that last point, but we’ll get to that later).

The Chicago outfit are one of those special types of bands: initially fleeting, but ultimately more seminal than anyone would have imagined. Their only LP, released in 1995 with an outrageously long name*, was a splatter of adolescent confusion and wide-eyed invention. It sounded like Eighties punk, like demented country, like jazz on speed, sometimes all at once. And in the years since, it’s been endlessly aped but never emulated.

When they disbanded later in 1995, after an on-tour drug overdose, multiple bands grew from the ashes. Joan of Arc was founded by vocalist Tim Kinsella, and his younger brother, Mike (Cap’n Jazz's drummer) went to college and formed American Football. Guitarist Davey von Bohlen nurtured his side project, The Promise Ring, into the acclaimed band it is today.

When Cap’n Jazz announced a handful of reunion gigs in 2010, it came as a surprise, and even more so this time around, seven years later – especially as they booked two shows in London, their first time ever playing outside the United States.

Tonight is the second performance of that UK mini-tour, and it’s tumultuous from the off. The drumming from Kinsella (Mike) is wild and rapid – a long way from his delicate guitar work as a solo artist and with American Football – as “Oh Messy Life” lurches into action and “In The Clear” breaks into a punk-fuelled sprint. The guitar work from Victor Villareal is angular, screeching and erratic. In the place of Von Bohlen we have yet another of the Kinsella clan, cousin Nate, who plays and sings along like a fan. As a unit, they resurrect the perfect chaos of the album.

And then there’s Tim. As inebriated frontmen go, not many have his magnetism. His lyrics, written as they were on a mushroom trip, can seem abstruse when read (“I am a puppy, a balloon, and a happy accident/ Missed she teaching me myths mistold”, on the song “Puddle Splashers”). But when you see him yelling, screaming and howling them here, on stage or in the sweaty midst of a crowd surf, you feel as if you know exactly what he means. His flailing stage antics could derail things – he frequently flings instruments into the crowd, only to beg for them back when he realises he needs them for the next song, and even vomits after one particularly boisterous episode – but the bedlam is somehow held together, in true Cap’n Jazz style.

There’s time for a ridiculously exuberant cover of A-Ha’s “Take On Me” before “Que Suerte!” storms in, its manic guitars and deafening drums eventually falling apart to leave Kinsella (Tim) standing on stage, closing what is almost definitely the final chapter of Cap’n Jazz. What a way to bid farewell.

*Right, deep breath: Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over