There is something about real Rock 'N' Roll music that exudes an ageless quality; it's almost like a primal instinct that gets passed from generation to generation via the lust for us human beings to get all hot and sweaty dancing our asses off to great tunes. Taking one look around at the crowd here tonight at Jim Jones Revue's first show in Wales, you have old stalwart punk rockers, granddads in their best drapes and even a scattering of teenagers all crammed in shoulder to shoulder and singing every word in unison. Thus cementing my belief that Rock 'N' Roll really is the true universal language of peace and unity in the world.

But before I get ahead of myself here, first up tonight and containing two of the aforementioned teenagers we had the pleasure of half an hour in the company of Psychobilly rockers Cowboy And The Corpse. Boasting a standing drummer and a double bass player, the four piece rattled through a busy set of their own songs mixed up with a few choice covers ('Borstal Breakout' done rockabilly style anyone?). The trouble was that when you're playing in a musical genre that already boasts such legends as The Meteors, The Stingrays and Guana Batz you're at a disadvantage unless you can match those guys in the song writing stakes. Riotous times are not so much expected but demanded even before a note is played. So tracks like 'Daemon Cuntry', although most welcome don't yet possess that 'edge' required to take the band to the frenzied levels of their mentors. 

It's almost a staggering two decades since I first encountered Jim Jones and his then band Thee Hypnotics supporting The Black Crowes around the UK. I became an immediate fan of their acid tinged garage rock and have followed the snake hipped frontman through Black Moses to this his current project like some wide eyed super freak. So it's with some amazement that the Jim Jones who takes to the stage tonight (and declares war on everyone's dancing shoes via his battle cry of "Jesus said boogie on a Tuesday night Cardiff") looks not a day older than the guy I saw way back when, albeit that his stage persona these days maybe slightly less Iguana and a little more Glimmer Twin.

With the memory of the previous Friday's lesson in rocking and a rolling and what not still fresh in my mind, how could any band ever come close to Mr Monroe's reinvigorated troop? Well I'll tell you this; Jim Jones Revue gave them a pretty damn close run for their money with a Rizla paper between the performances after a steward's enquiry was called here at ÜRHQ. From the white hot 'Rock 'N Roll Psychosis' through a grinding 'Cement Mixer' to the rambunctious 'Elemental' the band's own songs stood more than worthy soul mates to older standards like 'Big Hunk O' Love' and encore 'Good Golly Miss Molly'. Surrounding Jim, and making this incendiary band tick you have four of the finest calibre musicians the UK has to offer right now, especially drummer Nick Jones and piano player Eliot Mortimer who between them must have sweat more in forty five minutes onstage than the entire cast of a series of The Biggest Loser.

It's all over way too soon to make way for a club or something disgusting like that (c/o Jim Jones) and I'm left thinking of little band going by the name of The Rolling Stones who were once as good as this. We've seen a lot of great bands go unnoticed in our time on this earth, now make sure the next time Jim Jones Revue come calling in your town that you're at the front of the queue along with the punk rockers, granddads and teenagers. This is Rock 'N' Roll in its purest form and if administered undiluted, Jim Jones Revue are quite simply lethal.