Mercury Rev review – nostalgia was never this loud

A couple are slow-dancing next to the ladies’ loos, moony smiles on their faces. Three similarly minded women float out of the bathroom, swaying their hands above their heads. On stage, a grizzled, stubbly man is transporting them back through the years. “Time/ All the long red lines/ That take control/ Of all the smoke-like streams/ that flow into your dreams…” Dry ice fills the room and a thousand thirty- and fortysomethings exhale.

It’s been 17 years since Mercury Rev recorded Deserter’s Songs, the album that began with that lovely track, Holes, sung by Jonathan Donahue in his high, dreamy register. The band had endured tough times up to that point: their original frontman, David Baker, leaving under a cloud in 1994 (although he recently admitted he was happy to go), and career flops driving Donahue towards wide-eyed songs from his childhood for comfort. They threw this influence into the record they considered to be their last gasp and Deserter’s Songs ended up spawning three top 40 singles and becoming NME’s album of the year.

These dusty facts remain relevant as fans of a certain nostalgic age still form Mercury Rev’s core audience; the deepest sighs and loudest cheers tonight are reserved for those late 90s songs. But this is a band who, in a live setting, still feel hugely youthful, bolstered by their first album in seven years, The Light in You. Recorded after a tumultuous period in which Donahue lost his house in Hurricane Sandy and band co-founder Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak became a father and saw his mother diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, its songs have the same do-or-die fervour as their best-known material.

The show begins with The Light in You’s opening track, Queen of Swans. Synthesisers pulse and violet lights flash at the crowd. The Oval Space is a hipsterish, white-bricked cave of a venue, a strange fit on paper for musicians approaching their half-centuries, and a small one at that. But, God, do they own it, and God, are they loud. Guitars drone, fuzz and pulse. Drums pummel, thwack and slam.

The end of 2001’s You’re My Queen goes into a particularly mind-blasting cosmic overdrive. One is put in mind of the Jesus and Mary Chain or My Bloody Valentine, bands around when Mercury Rev began making noise in the late 1980s. Many faces in the audience beam, but a few grimaces are noted.

Mercury Rev are happy to revisit that past in other ways. Early on, they play lively versions of Carwash Hair and Frittering from 1991’s Yerself Is Steam. Donohue tells of early gigs when they’d play two chords for 20 minutes because they didn’t have enough songs. He drops his mic and remembers David Baker doing the same frequently – “digging through the crowd like a little mole… to get a drink from the bar”. These anecdotes give warm baths of memories – before the music startles you awake.

Donohue remains a beguiling stage presence. Part mad old uncle in need of a shave, part fox-like shaman with a voice of a child, he rarely stays still. On 1998 weepie Endlessly, he shivers his hands around as if playing an imaginary theremin. In Are You Ready?, he claws at the air. During Diamonds, a bubble machine surrounds him with glossy baubles. It should all seem silly, but that strange, celestial voice gets you through, even though it rasps a little sorely at times.

Lyrics in new songs such as Central Park East can only help you root for him: “Wondering where we went wrong/ And if I’ll ever get another chance to dream along”. The dream worked out OK tonight, petal.

Crowd-pleasers bring the show to a close, as Mercury Rev manage somehow to conjure an extra burst of power and cinematic sweep. Goddess on a Hiway, the song that became their biggest hit, sounds fit for the widescreen. 2001’s The Dark Is Rising bursts with an incredibly sublime kind of sorrow. A ballad tailormade for a Pixar film, it prompts more smiles and swaying hands from the masses. Donahue and his band join in and look forward brightly to the future.