Posted: Wednesday 2nd July 2008

Reviewed by Samantha McGowan and Andrew Jones

Late Autumn last year promoters All Tomorrow’s Parties made the startling announcement that My Bloody Valentine were to regroup for a series of shows to be held the following June. The gigs were to be the first live performances by this toweringly influential alternative rock outfit in sixteen years and news of the concerts spread fast among fans. When the tickets finally became available at 9am on the 16th November they sold out within minutes.

The lucky ones who came away from this desperate scramble clutching a ticket waited seven long months for this gig but last weekend at London’s Roundhouse Theatre they were finally rewarded. Tense anticipation would provide the basis for an electric atmosphere and when the band finally took the stage on each of their 5 sold out nights (concerts in Manchester and Glasgow follow in coming weekends, as well as festival appearances) they did not disappoint.

Launching into their opening track Only Shallow from their legendary album Loveless, there was an exhilarating rush of decibels that did not let up for a moment of their two-hour long set. Almost every highlight from their revered catalogue of songs was visited this evening as the band led a clearly rapt audience through a night of glorious noise.

The audience was as diverse as you might expect, ranging from those who were fortunate enough to see them first time around, alongside fans that had struck upon the magic of their two albums and handful of EPs after the group had already disbanded and probably never even considered being able to attend a live performance by the group.

On record, MBV’s music is utterly original, with few, if any peers across the musical spectrum. For those fans that had never seen the group play live before it perhaps seemed difficult to imagine that tonight’s live performance could do justice to the intricacies of their studio creations. Could it be that live, without the benefit of studio trickery, MBV would sound like just another band?

Any fears that this would be the case were dispelled instantly. Just as Kevin Shields’ astonishing and experimental guitar sound is the centrepiece of their recorded output, in concert this evening his playing formed a deafening focal point that both replicated and even expanded on the gorgeous, textured distortion of songs such as To Here Knows When and Blown A Wish. The otherworldly vocal interplay between Shields and Bilinda Butcher was also mesmerising, layered deep into the mix as one would expect.

To look at the stage piled high with a monolithic wall of speakers you could be forgiven for thinking you were at a huge outdoor festival. However, within the confines of The Roundhouse Theatre, the sonic onslaught kindly reminded you that you were not. Rarely in a gig does the sound take on the physical nature that it did tonight, causing your nostrils to quiver and your sternum to shake. It is a credit then to an extraordinary band that the delicate beauty of their music was all the while inescapable. Delighting fans as each new song announced itself, the band played through much of Isn’t Anything and Loveless and also performed EP-only tracks such as ‘Cigarette In Your Bed’ and Honey Power.

To identify each song they played through the sheer density of sound was left up to the crowd as MBV’s presence on stage was marked by an almost complete lack of interaction with their audience. There was no need for between song introductions and this nonchalance only served to emphasise the power of the music they were performing. Perhaps to speak would have undermined the band’s simple mystique and violated the enormous sense of occasion on this triumphant return to the stage.

After the deep melodic experimentalism of most of the set the night climaxed in an almost unimaginable frenzy of noise as the band closed their set with a magnificent 30-minute rendition of early EP track You Made Me Realise. Once again the studio recording of the song was turned on its head as Kevin Shields and drummer Colm O’Coisoig pushed the PA (MBVs own, brought in especially for the gigs) far into the red and beyond…

Although older MBV fans may have been prepared for this overwhelming finale, as this renowned style of close had long been a signature style for the group dating back into their early career, others were in for an (enjoyable) shock. In tonight’s performance, in a feat of physical endurance that both the band and the audience deserve to be congratulated on, the middle-eight section of YMMR was stretched out over a seemingly endless 25-minute passage of howling feedback, dirge and thunderous drum-rolls. This visceral barrage actually became a little tedious towards the end and many audience members had their fingers firmly in their ears to protect what little hearing remained. (Although earplugs were fortuitously available for free at the venue.) Just as people began to file out the band suddenly together launched back into the main part of the song and concluded their set to an applause as deafening as the music that preceded it, dumping their instruments and stumbling off without a word as a loop effect slowly faded out and darkness fell over the theatre. As the dazed audience staggered out, carefully walking around the St. John’s Ambulance men working to resuscitate those for whom it had sadly all proved too much, (this band is surely best experienced sober!) the singular magnificence of the return of these much missed innovators was beyond any doubt.

In around six months time when my hearing finally returns I may even go to watch them again, they were that good.