Drive Like Jehu Announce Free Reunion Show

San Diego post-hardcore cult icons Drive Like Jehu have become the latest mid-‘90s angst-rock outfit to dust off the moniker and reconvene, announcing their return in a fittingly no-nonsense manner on their website and social media accounts this week.

The band, who have not played together under the Drive Like Jehu name since 1995, a year after releasing their second full-length album, Yank Crime, will reunite for a free show in their home town at the city’s Balboa Park this month, accompanied by civic organist Dr Carol Williams. Mmm, prestigious.

The band made their announcement first on their Facebook page – which, hey, Drive Like Jehu have Facebook – and then their website, staying unsurprisingly brief about the details of the reunion, much less the reasons for its occurrence.

Drive Like Jehu were only around for five years at the start of the 1990s, as guitarist John Reis juggled duties in both that band and the eventually more-well-known and far-longer-lived Rocket From The Crypt, but were, along with bands such as Rites Of Spring, Jawbreaker and Fugazi, indelibly influential on the development of the second- and early third-wave emo and post-hardcore scenes of the mid- to late ‘90s and first few years of the 2000s.

It’s been something of a ‘90s renaissance for many of the elder statesmen of the movement, too, with seminal alt acts Braid and Mineral also having recently reformed, and contemporaries Sunny Day Real Estate having been active as recently as last year (they released their first new song since 2000 earlier this year after attempted new full-length sessions in 2013 “just fell apart”). However, both Braid and Mineral have been touring, and the former just released their first album in 14 years.

Does this mean that the Drive Like Jehu reunion is anything more than this one show at this point in time? No, of course not (although, they made a Facebook page), but maybe – hopefully – they’ll rediscover the magic when they reconvene on August 31 and this will end up being more than just a far-flung once-off that we’ll never get to go to. Sigh.