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My Bloody Valentine
It isn’t easy typing when you’re having to pick your jaw up off the keys every few minutes but such are the levels of agogness induced in the wake of this, My Bloody Valentine’s first show in sixteen years.
First off, I’d heard they were loud in their heyday but, Jesus Christ, we’re standing six feet from a speaker stack with brains sat on heads like ice cream scoops in a nuclear holocaust, blinking dumbly at a show so searingly molten you could cream the slag right off the top.
And the weirdest part is, with the exception of Debbie Googe’s crowd-shunning, legs-akimbo turn on bass, they’re all strumming at their instruments with the daydreamy listlessness of someone doing the dishes. Bilinda Butcher especially; she’s cute as a button with a coquettish smile playing round her lips, all the while acting like she hasn’t got the foggiest about the aural jackhammer she’s wielding over our rapt and terrified skulls.
But really, we should have known as much – Kevin Shields isn’t one to do things by halves, as Alan McGee’s accountant will no doubt attest, and tonight’s show had to be the studiedly supernova entrance it proves were it ever going to meet with the monomaniacal one’s approval. Hence, the 20-minute finale of ‘You Made Me Realise’ is every bit the heart-stopping shitstorm of noise it was reputed to be during the band’s 1991 Loveless tour.
Shields betrays little or no emotion at the magnitude of the event throughout - no new material, no prattle, just 90 minutes or so of brilliant, purging noise to snatch the seminal shoegazers’ legacy from the wilting nu-gaze dullards and lump it, sneering, into the palms of the noise rock pretenders. No Age, Fuck Buttons et al: the bar hasn’t so much been raised as wrenched clean off its crutches and brought unremittingly down on the soft-boiled skulls of the new guard.
And while their onstage demeanour bears a slight trace of first-night nerves, one song having to be restarted after they mess up the intro, the band provides every reason to hope new material will be magnificently up to snuff and might reinvent the wheel much in the same way Third did so effectively for Portishead earlier this year.
Pull those fingers out your ears, you’ll need 'em for crossing.
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first
OH YEAH
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what?
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Scores on the doors
If that was 9/10, what gets a 10? The noise was just unbelievable in the best possible way. Shat on mogwai fear satan etc from a great height.
Apparently they added more amps for the 2nd show which I went to. My ears hurt.
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I cannot wait
until Saturday night at the Roundhouse. I was too young for the Rollercoaster tour, but back then I'd have given three major organs and a limb to see this band. Thankfully, all the reports so far suggest I will not be disappointed.
Well, apart from by the fact that it's even less likely Bilinda will decide she wants to elope with me to Mexico now than it was then, but I can live with that. Just.
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Every time I think
about MBV at the ICA, I let out a little involuntary cackle. It's undignified and it's doing me no favours.
GOD they were sublime.
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I went to the gig on Friday.
I'll remember that gig for years to come. Simply awesome.
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Ears
still ringing from Saturday.
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I want to see these guys sooooo bad.
I just hope they have some more london gig dates in future.
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I think
the Roundhouse still have some tickets left for some of this week's shows. Worth taking a look just in case.
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Saturday night at ICA...
...was pretty much a life-defining moment. 'I only said' was heavenly; 'nothing much to lose' was crazy good. Highlight was probably the distorted guitar in 'Spoon': I've never heard/felt anything like it. Unbelievable bx
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.
I am old enough to have seen them first time around on the Rollercoaster tour in 1991, where the full line up was Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine, Blur and Jesus and Mary Chain just amazing. So I already know how great they are just have to wait until Spetmeber to see them over here, seems too far away at the moment
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Bring on Manchester Apollo...
It's not fair that i have to wait a week or two longer, i want to see them NOW.
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^^^THIS
I went and got my tickets for the gig out of the draw last night, just to look at them. It felt awesome.
*wets pants*
Joe - www.anewbandaday.com
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They were brilliant that night
...so I read. I wasn't there and no-one can comfort me now in my despair!
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they made me realise
that i needed better earplugs for gigs. the end of the friday show was a battle of wills - them against the audience. some got sick quickly and left. some rode it out. after 10 minutes of divebombing racket i started feeling pretty ill myself.
the performance was very intense, but i wasn't convinced of the sound quality at the ICA. some of the songs came across as very muddied - i think in part to the 15 pedals shields had by his feet.
try this out for size:
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Chicago show, 27 September
Just saw/felt/experienced MBV for the first time at the Aragon Ballroom (noted for it's sh!t acoustics). However, I feared not, for audio perfectionists, if anyone can make it work, it's Kevin Shields & co. they did not fail in their task. After prior warning from a mate who saw them in NYC the week or two beforehand, I made sure to get the best rated ear plugs possible. Ironic that the venue was handing them out to all in line before the show, letting people know that it was at the request/insistance of the band. They were really shit little cheapy earplugs, and a few of the other people I knew at the show were short on hearing all weekend even with them in! I, on the other hand was comfy and in exstacy (as you can imagine) from the truly awe-inspiring event that I witnessed. So all is right in the world, and my perception is yet again altered by music and sound.
Thank you MBV for coming back into everyone's lives.
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