My Bloody Valentine

 

I don’t go to enough gigs. Never did. A brief scan through my blog and memory of older efforts details some fantastic experiences but I’m sure I still missed some amazing opportunities. Back in the day I was fortunate to see many of my favourite bands and with some minor exceptions I think I did OK, especially since a £5 an hour job in a video shop wasn’t exactly a path to NME backstage pass entertainment. Now our generation has the opportunity to revisit some of those artists we may have missed as they have reformed for many different reasons – not always the money, not always the kudos, just sometimes because I think they can, and it feels right.

 

Last Tuesday I saw the ethereal ‘My Bloody Valentine‘ on the final night of their short residency at the Cornerhouse where you may recall I caught ‘Sonic Youth‘ last year. Full disclosure, I was not a major fan back in the day as it were, I was vaguely aware of their amazing breakthrough material and approaches to gigs but I was too busy listening to ‘Lush’ and ‘Ride’ when it came to that strand of music to appreciate what could be achieved with those effect pedals and an obsessive attention to detail. And volume. I own ‘Loveless‘ which is great but it wasn’t exactly on the playlist for any Minty Indie revival compilation. 

So I approached this gig without the sense of expectation that many others did, including my mate who I went with who is a major fan of the band. Now then, I’ve heard some loud gigs in my life. Front and centre for the Pixies in Brixton in 1990. Sonic Youth in 1990. Shellac in 2005. The Hollowmen in the Posh Club in 1988. They all stack up. This was not a gig, it was nothing less than an aural fucking assault and it was literally stunning. During the last track ‘You Made Me Realise‘ the entire place was literally shaking,the vibrations were almost palpable in the air such was the volume and insane distortions which was coined as the ‘Holocaust‘ when they pulled this stunt on tours back in the 1990’s. I’m still recovering. Some other great tracks where trotted out (click on the ‘watch in high quality’ icon for that one), no encores but after the disorientation of the final track I can’t complain. Apologies for the poor audio on those links but I’m surprised the punters phones didn’t commit suicide trying to capture the footage and frankly there’s not much material out there – hopefully it will give you some flavour of proceedings. 

 

Set list above. So, next on the agenda are these headcases whom I’m seeing in a few weeks, I’m really excited as John Peel memorably called them one of the best live experiences of his life and I don’t think you can get higher praise than that. Finally, here is an article on the best 25 electronica albums of all time. I’ve no problem with the godfathers ‘Kraftwerk’ achieving the No.1 and they seem to cover all the bases although I’d replace Portishead and Bjork if I had the chance….

~ by mintyblonde on July 1, 2008.