The Psychedelic Furs perform at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo. on Oct. 23, 2024. Courtesy. San Francisco concert photos below: Meri Brin.

SAN FRANCISCO — The 1980s were resurgent Saturday night as two of the decade’s most influential bands co-headlined a show at the Masonic.

The Psychedelic Furs delivered a set sprinkled with hits amid deep cuts from their nearly five decades together. The sextet, which included a pair of guitarists, a drummer and keyboardist, took the stage to a surge of applause. Dressed in a lightweight black suit and sunglasses, vocalist Richard Butler’s gravelly voice became instantly recognizable as he sang “The Boy That Invented Rock and Roll,” from 2020 album Made of Rain after bowing deeply to the enthusiastic audience.

Butler’s brother and fellow founding member of the band, bassist Tim Butler, also in dark glasses, wore a red blazer as he delivered the thumping bass lines on songs like “Mr. Jones,” 1981 album Talk, Talk, Talk and “President Gas” from 1982’s Forever Now. The band summoned its punkest vibe of the night for “Pulse,” from its self-titled 1981 debut album, which it delivered with reckless double-time abandon. The Butler brother were joined onstage by a pair of guitarists who provided not just the well known chord progressions of the hits, but fiery, face-melting shredding on “All of the Law” and low end noise and a violin-sounding solo from an upright bass mounted on a stand during “Only You And I.”

The Psychedelic Furs perform at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo. on Oct. 23, 2024.

The band’s hits elicited the biggest reactions from the crowd, which sang along with the chorus of “love, love, love” during “The Ghost of You” and many of whom got out their phones to record “Love My Way.”

Of course, the biggest reaction of the night was elicited by the band’s soundtrack hit “Pretty In Pink.” Keyboardist Amanda Kramer provided a lush synthesizer solo during that song and “Heartbreak Beat.”

Co-headlining was another British band founded by a pair of brothers: pioneering shoegaze band the Jesus and Mary Chain, which turned in a slick set that mined the band’s 40-year discography.

Awash in red and green stage lights, vocalist Jim Reid prowled the stage in a black suit jacket as the band stood in front of large guitar amplifiers emblazoned with the “Jesus.” The 70-minute set featured the band’s later, more straightforward rock and roll, with an occasional visit to the noisier early material that’s become so influential 40 years later.

The Jesus and Mary Chain performs at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo. on Oct. 23, 2024.

The Jesus and Mary Chain kicked things off with the slinky bass line of “Jamco,” off its most recent album, 2024’s Glasgow Eyes. Other songs from the band’s latest included the piercing guitar and shambling groove of “Chemical Animal” and the Tom-Petty-esque stripped-down and drum-heavy “Venal Joy.” The relatively feedback-free set was a far cry from the band’s legendary noise-drenched concerts of the 1980s, which sometimes lasted all of 20 minutes.

It was not entirely noise-free, however. Strange guitar noise punctuated the rock and roll simplicity of “In a Hole” and introduced “All Things Must Past,” the one song from 2017 album Damage and Joy. 

The hits, which included “April Skies,” “Candy Talking” and “Blues From a Gun,” drew big reactions. And of course, the crowd recognized the quintet’s biggest hit, “Just Like Honey,” from just the sparest bass and snare drum backbeat that began the song. Jim Reid was joined for the song, as well as “Sometimes Always,” by former Vivian Girls’ vocalist (and show opener) Frankie Rose, whose voice cut through the overdriven wall of sound like a satin blade.

Rose opened the evening with a 30-minute set of retro-sounding new wave music, including “DOA” and “Anything,” from 2023 album Love as Projection. With haunting guitar lines chiming over a drum machine and wash of synthesizers, Rose would’ve sounded right at home opening up for these bands 40 years ago.