My Bloody Valentine Live

When ATP (All Tomorrow’s Parties) and My Bloody Valentine announced their live return to the UK, a single night at the Hammersmith Apollo in March, the internet immediately started buzzing. Tickets went up and were sold out in seconds. Another night was quickly added, where standing tickets also promptly sold out. Having not seen MBV – a key band in the development of my musical tastes – in three years, I was pretty stoked. They were clearly feeling generous with their live performances for the dedicated and added a third, more intimate, date – the show at Electric Brixton last Sunday. By the time this third date was added I was giddy with excitement so quickly seized the opportunity to not only see MBV one more time, but also several months before I had originally expected.

By the time support was announced (which happened on the day of the event) in the form of Le Volume Courbe, I was already pretty excited, more than I have been about a single gig for a couple of years. I wondered whether there would be material from the new album dropped, if it even exists, and would I appreciate ‘The Holocaust’ more now that I’m into noise? For those not in the know, The Holocaust is a ~20 minute long extension of a single note from ‘You Made Me Realise’ and is renowned for the incredible volume and distortion with which it is performed. I did hold some reservations though. I was concerned that they would not live up to their reputation for painfully loud live shows – I felt the first time I saw them was nowhere near loud enough, although some people were sat on the floor holding their ears at the end – and that if they played a lot of new material, maybe it wouldn’t hold a candle to the impressive standard of Loveless.

There was a tangible buzz in the air coming to the gig. Everyone on the tube seemed to be heading there, and I even recognized a few people from various ATP festivals (including the tall grey haired guy who is at literally everything). Needless to say, I was as hyped up as a little middle class girl buying her first pony.

The venue was surprisingly large. The size of it made me worry I have completely forgotten just how large the Apollo is, being spoilt by a spate of gigs in the past 3 months that rarely exceeded a 200 person capacity. Accordingly it felt pretty empty when Le Volume Courbe opened, and we managed to work our way to the second row. The set seemed pretty great but I was kind of distracted by the upcoming festivities and found it a little hard to focus, so I doubt I could really add any value by discussing it at length.

By the time My Bloody Valentine took the stage, the venue was absolutely rammed. Now I was very concerned about the business of the March dates, but was content in that we had held our spot at the front despite how crushed it was elsewhere in the venue. They opened with a new track (the only one they would play), which seemed pretty great, although maybe I was a bit caught up in seeing them again. The track was, as I somewhat expected, a lot less dense than anything from Loveless, though the drum and bass elements Shields referred to were, not surprisingly, nowhere in sight. The first thing that caught me, sadly, was how loud it was – not very. It was pretty much at a standard gig level. Certainly nobody was vomiting on the floor whilst bleeding from the ears, as one would quite like in these situations.

From the off, people were complaining about the sound mix. Several people shouted after the first track that the vocals were too low, which sounds absurd for shoegaze, but was sadly true. Of course they should be buried, but certainly where I was, I literally could not hear them for the vast majority of the set. The sound system seemed completely unable to handle the levels that were desired, with a lack of definition in pretty much everything and the lows getting washed out. The band themselves were clearly very unhappy about the sound too, stopping halfway through ‘To Here Knows When’ to try and get it turned up, which they certainly managed, but perhaps at the expense of even more fidelity. As Kevin Shields angrily remarked, “It sounds like we’re playing in a wind tunnel three miles long”.

I think it is a testament to the strength of their live set that despite being clearly a little out of practice and having all the sound problems, I still really enjoyed the performance. ‘The Holocaust’, it turned out, was indeed phenomenal. Again the volume disappointed me, and I think this is possibly why they chose to cut it short (only 6 minutes), but the actual noise being produced was pretty incredible. I feel it’s quite remarkable really just how good ‘The Holocaust’ is considering that they have little tendency towards noise overall, and really wish it would have been extended. The drop from the absolutely searing distortion of the conclusion of ‘The Holocaust’ straight back into the punchy, catchy drive of ‘You Made Me Realise’ was a definite highlight of the set, and I look forward to seeing this executed to its maximum in March. Unless of course they are only going to perform 6 minutes of it now every time, which would be truly sad.

I think possibly too onerous of a burden is sometimes put on My Bloody Valentine as a result of their live reputation. Everyone who had seen them before, and knew how great they can be when the sound is as loud as they want and the system is of a good quality, seemed to be disappointed with the set. Those I spoke to who had never seen them before thought it was still amazing despite the problems, and the girl next to us (sadly she disappeared before I could get an opinion) certainly seemed to be enjoying it based on how utterly mental she was going. Having had a night to reflect, whilst they didn’t live up to the extremely high standard I have applied to them, I think they will in March. With two months to really nail their live performances again, and the fact that the sound system at Apollo is far better than at Electric, I think they should once again be able to provide the kind of performance that makes grown men weep.

Update: they were indeed pretty sweet at Apollo.