Thursday night, and I am having a drink with friends. Friends who saw
My Bloody Valentine last night. Tales are told of post-gig telephone calls terminated after it becomes apparent neither side can hear anything for the tinnitus now ravaging all ears exposed to this unholy noise. I am told the venue are handing out ear plugs to patrons. There is a reprise of their famed noise improv on ‘You Made Me Realise’ that ‘is like a jet plane taking off’. It’s the same story I’ve been hearing all day from the multitude of friends who attended the first night. ‘I lasted three songs before I
had to use the earplugs’, says one.
Hot damn, this sounds fun.
Eventually, I remember to finish my beer and actually go to the gig, and one excruciating ankle cramp (don’t ask) later I arrive... midway through the first song. Whoops. If anything, though, it only heightens the anticipation. I can hear a familiar melody set atop rumbling bass while I’m still only halfway up the street. Awesome. As I enter the venue and obtain a set of those complimentary earplugs, the only comparison I can make regarding the sound I’m hearing from the bottom of the stairs is that it sounds like a choir of angels appearing in the middle of a Vietnam War firefight. It’s a terrible analogy, but it’ll have to do.
When I finally enter the hall, the first thing that hits me is the drums. Not the dull thud of so many gigs, but rather a crisp and clean attack that hits right in the gut. On ‘Loveless’, that feted early 90’s ‘shoegazing’ masterpiece, the overall wall-of-sound effect and general musical direction often relegated the drums to mere timekeeping duties. Here, Colm Ó Cíosóig seems to be intent on righting that wrong, playing his heart out like he’s in a hard rock band. He has help too, as bassist Debbie Googe plants her feet firmly in one spot, faces the drumkit and leans in like she’s in a tug-of-war. You can see the effort on their faces: they are rocking the fuck out. I, however, am standing in a queue for an overpriced can of Miller. I don’t take my eyes off them anyway. Seldom has the overused description of the rhythm section as ‘the engine room’ been more apt.
Once I’ve obtained the aforementioned beverage and moved to a better vantage point from which to enjoy the gig, I finally get a look at the twin frontpersons of the band, the source of the wave of treble that is now attacking my ears. They’re eerily calm in the context of the aural chaos they’re producing; real ‘eye of the hurricane’ kinda stuff. Neither of them looks particularly interested or excited. Quite the opposite. ‘Diffident’ is probably the best way to describe their demeanour. Bilinda Butcher strums her guitar and coos wispy and ethereal melodies that barely make it over the torrent of feedback and harmonics supplied by reclusive guitarist (in the widest sense of the word) Kevin Shields. They almost seem to be in a different band from Cíosóig and Googe. Dionysian duo, meet Appolonian adventurers.
By the time they hit ’Feed Me With Your Kiss’, I’m grinning ear-to-ear at how something so utterly brutal can be so beautiful.The crowd reflect this duality too. I see plenty of indie kids in their Sonic Youth t-shirts, but also a couple of guys I know from extreme metal bands, and they all seem to be as awestruck as I am. Well, except for the handful of punters I see exiting the venue less than halfway through the set when I make a quick visit to the bathroom. I am later informed that last night was actually louder.
The thing is though, at no point do I think ’This is a racket’ or ’This is painful’. It’s absolutely crystal clear. I can hear every familiar harmonic melody in ’Only Shallow’ and ‘Soon’ (and what a strange world we’re living in where those songs are crowdpleasers on a sell-out tour) perfectly. I can’t work out where it’s coming from, whether it’s on tape, stored and being triggered by Shields from his effects board, or simply a result or whatever-the-hell-he’s-playing-coupled-with-whatever-the-hell-he’s-augmenting-his-guitar-sound-with, but I can hear it all as it’s meant to be heard. There is no distortion other than the intended. Nothing is breaking up or being lost in transition from stage to spectator. My god, why don’t all gigs sound like this? Why do I spend half my life complaining about muddy mixes at gigs? I’m reminded of the last time I saw Kevin Shields, when he was a shadowy sort-of-member of Primal Scream and I stood watching his hands all night trying to match it up with the freakish sounds I could hear coming through the PA. I never did, and I still can’t. Even when he switches to acoustic guitar for one song, it inevitably erupts into a hail of beautiful noise midway. I leave the earplugs in my pocket for the moment. Why would I want to block any of this out? There’s even a very drunk guy next to me who keeps screaming inbetween songs for them to ‘TURN UP THE VOLUME, YOU PUSSIES’. I think he’s having a good time but I’m not sure.
Eventually they plough into ‘You Made Me Realise’, the song which first alerted the world (or at least the NME) to how different this band are. Like all of the songs played tonight, and especially the ones from ‘Isn’t Anything’, it’s harder and heavier than I ever thought possible based on the records. I’m reminded that Alan McGee signed them on his belief that they were the ‘Irish Husker Du’ and that a punk rock band still lurks underneath the experimentation and exotic musical colourings. Then they hit the extreme noise section, less than a minute on the record, and last night stretched out to 15 minutes, so I’m told. Tonight it hits about twenty, which is plenty for me and mercifully less than their possibly mythical record of 45 minutes. What does it sound like? A vacuum cleaner the size of the world attempting to hoover up Hell itself. In fact, that prose probably isn’t even purple enough to describe it. By now I have moved in front of a main speaker stack at the front of the stage (an area which is unsurprisingly left clear in comparison to most gigs) and I regretfully succumb to common sense and pop the earplugs in. It still sounds incredible/abysmal, but every so often I take one out to get an idea of what frequencies I’m missing. Turns out it’s mainly ones I didn’t know existed.
The crowd are generally respectful and tolerant of this excursion to the outskirts of what can even be termed music, with the exception of a handful of drunks who feel the need to throw wanker signs and shout (completely in vain, of course, as no one can hear them) at the stage. Some look bored. Quite a few people head for the shelter of the sides of the hall, out of the path of the aural armageddon Shields and co are so nonchalantly summoning. The sounds emanating from his guitar get stranger and stranger.
Then it kicks back into the actual song and the room goes wild. It sounds even more punishing now than it did before. And then it’s all over.
Only one thing niggles at me. This was too perfect. It was the My Bloody Valentine gig I’d always dreamed of seeing ever since reading about the ‘Loveless’ tour in some monthly magazine’s ‘100 Most Important Gigs Ever’ list back in the mid-to-late nineties. There was nothing new or unexpected. Was this a cynical retread of past glories for ego-stroking and/or monetary reasons, like so many reunion shows? Or was it a triumphant restatement of values, a reaffirmation of their mission statement and founding of a solid base from which to begin the next chapter? It’s impossible to tell from the blank looks on their faces. Have they gone offstage to high five each other for an amazing gig? Or did they feel a hint of how Mick Jagger must feel when he sings ‘Satisfaction’ again and tries in vain to find something new and exciting in it?
I honestly have no idea. But it was bloody loud and that’ll do nicely for me.
