My Bloody Valentine Live Review
Camden Roundhouse, London, June 20, 2008
My Bloody Valentine Stage Five Night Residency in Camden
The rapturous applause that fills London’s Roundhouse tonight seems ill-matched to the four introverted figures taking the stage. But, for My Bloody Valentine, this crowd’s roar has been steadily building for fifteen years.
For MBV’s main man and ascribed “genius”, Kevin Shields, it has been fifteen years of apparent reclusion and musical inactivity. This has been punctuated only in recent years by occasional and frustratingly brief glimpses of creativity.
Now, apropos of nothing, the two albums on which the group’s entire reputation rests – 1989’s Isn’t Anything and their epochal 1991 masterpiece Loveless – are finally being reissued and expanded.
Kevin Shields Returns After 15 Years Away
Appearance-wise, the band has changed little since it’s early-‘90s heyday, bar Shields’ greyed and receding mop of hair. Tonight - the second of a their three night residency at the Roundhouse, sold-out months beforehand - they will play no new material. But nobody cares.
For, despite the anonymity of the musicians themselves, the ghostly, droning guitar sound that swells from the amplifiers is heralded like the return of a long-absent space visitor.
This “time capsule” quality – combined with the well-marketed mystique surrounding Shield’s return – elevates tonight’s occasion above a mere Pixies-style reunion. Tons of artists have acknowledged MBV’s influence – from Sigur Ros to Boards of Canada – but few have matched their music’s towering ethereality.
Many of the audience were in nappies when MBV originally split up, and much of their record collections are informed by the group’s legendary sound. Tonight, people have come to simply witness them play.
MBV Remain Pioneers of “Shoegazing”
However, the band’s lack of activity since Loveless raises some question marks. Shield’s recent solo forays – including underwhelming remixes for other artists and tentative soundtrack work for Sophie Coppola’s Lost In Translation – have been notably slight. Can his reformed group live up to the hype?
All doubts are immediately submerged beneath a immense, ghostly wall of sound as the band glide into set-opener ‘Only Shallow’. To finally see this haunting music recreated live strikes awe into the assembled crowd.
Shield’s unsteady, wavering guitar and co-singer/guitarist Debbie Googe’s obvious nerves are a reminder of the disarming vulnerability at the core of this massive, beautiful and intense noise. The group occasionally betrays the lack of confidence which earned their music the tag “shoegazing” all those years ago, particularly when their second song succumbs to a false start.
My Bloody Valetine Give Free Earplugs to the Camden Roundhouse Crowd
MBV’s legendarily intense volume levels are certainly present tonight. Most of the audience can be seen fiddling with the free earplugs handed to them outside the gig.
Tonight’s performance also unexpectedly reveals the simplicity, or minimalism, at the heart of MBV’s songs. Shield’s vision is one of pure sound: imagine a Phil Spector production with the vocals and riffs blurred like a water colour painting, only much, much louder.
Loveless and Isn’t Anything Songs Dominate MBV’s Second Night in Camden
A particular highlight of the band's set is the Loveless single ‘To Here Knows When’, a soaring slow-build in which Googe’s Enya-like vocals and droning jet plane guitars merge together.
The earlier Isn’t Anything material is noticeably more aggressive. ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’ I attacked with a ragged, almost garage punk aesthetic with punishing bass and drums. Elsewhere, the coda to ‘Nothing Much To Lose’ is stunningly abrasive as a towering wave of ultra-loud white noise, with no exaggeration, literally pushes the audience backwards like a gust of air.
You Made Me Realise: the Holocaust
But the real – and loudest - highpoint is left until last, with the band’s already-legendary encore of ‘You Made Me Realise’. Without warning, the song explodes into another tsunami feedback squall, engulfing the audience in white noise - which the band a fan messageboards have dubbed "the holocaust." This continues for what feels like 45 minutes; an experience that is both punishing and exhilarating.
Shields stands stock-still, glaring upon the audience with wild eyes as the powerful, wailing noise rushes from his fingertips. It soon subsides, and the group relapses back into ‘You Made Me Realise’. They fumble this slightly - as if the band themselves are unable to wield the cacophony that they have unleashed.
July Reissues for Loveless and Isn’t Anything
However, despite the odd slip-up, My Bloody Valentine - perhaps against the odds – live up to their reputation. With the reissues of Isn’t Anything and Loveless due out July 14, and the pending CD release of Shields’ Coral Sea collaboration with New York legend Patti Smith - both according to www.pitchforkmedia.com - lets hope that Shields and his group are this time here to stay.
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