The number of reunions that are worth anything can be counted on one hand, and that’s a hand that’s worked with sheet-metal and had a couple of lawsuits.

Scotland’s the Jesus & Mary Chain had been going on for fifteen years when they broke up in 1999. It’s difficult to nail down just how influential the band really were. It’s hard to describe how much their tactic of chucking apocalyptic noise into a pool of ’50s rock & roll myth, post-punk genre-tourism, and cool pop hooks made everything at the time sound better.

They got back together last year, and while no one’s quite sure why, they’re here now, in front of everyone, and for many of us, for the very first time.

It’s simple. They just showed up. No intro music. No backdrop. Like it hasn’t been a decade since they were here. There’s the first song. Done. Second song. Done. Nothing in-between. The band, standing stock-still, surrounded in smoke and squalls, come off as a kind of unified, laconic force, a sort of seamless and charismatic wall of anti-performance, and you remember how hard it is to pull it off.

But the Jesus & Mary Chain have always had some contempt for their fans. They’ve played whole shows with their backs to the audience, sparked off historic riots, and even continued to release essentially the same record over their whole career. After one song, crowd roaring, frontman Jim Reid shrugs and says, “Cheers.”

There’s “Head On” and “Sidewalking” and “Cracking Up.” There’s a nervous “Some Candy Talking” and a brutish “Blues From A Gun.” There’s “Far Gone & Out,” which they fumble, and “Just Like Honey,” which, as Jim Reid looks out with a single light in his eye, hits hard enough for you to forget how much you’ve heard it.

Besides Jim and William Reid, the new line-up has members of Ride and Lush, including Not Bobby Gillespie on drums. They look well and calm. Jim Reid’s come out of a life of alcohol and chaos looking somehow like a young John Simm, while William Reid looms like a round Robert Smith. It almost seems too easy until things start to go wrong. “It’s not our fault,” one of them says, as songs are restarted. “This is a fucking nightmare.”

It’s not, as it turns out. It’s a good night for the memories. If they don’t play Honey’s Dead front-to-back, they cover their catalogue with broad strokes, and wrap up an encore with “Reverence,” one of the band’s most vicious pieces of music, which is a dense and blistering and brilliant reminder of when bands used to crush their most important influences together instead of only mimic them.

After everything is over, after every song, you hear echoes of a hundred bands that wouldn’t exist without the Jesus & Mary Chain.

Like most reunions, you’re not watching the band — these brothers of Scotland — you’re watching what they must have been like when they were still alive and together, producing music and part of the culture. It’s a live-action re-enactment. And your mileage may vary. But at least for tonight, while nothing proves that any of this is necessary, it’s obvious it was once necessary, full-stop, and their reputation and their sound survives, which is almost good enough.