My Bloody Valentine

I was dimly aware of the existence of this lot back around the time they were gearing up to release Loveless, in 1993. I saw someone I knew wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the group on the front of it. Their stare looked somewhat vacant, and combined with the long fringes they had then made them look like derivatives of the Manchester baggy scene, even if their name alone was interesting. I didn't really think much about them after, for quite a while.

It was only in time, when the single that was released from Loveless, 'Soon', started to get played on indie stations at night, that my interest was piqued. My taste in music was music was starting to lean towards atmosphere and texture at that time, and the vocals and swirling guitars in that song fitted the bill perfectly. Around that time, Billy Corgan out of the Smashing Pumpkins cited the production by Flood and Alan Moulder on the Loveless album as a substantial reference point for him. And so, around the year 2000, when I started making money for the first time after college by working in IT, I went out and bought it.

It was that album, and Radiohead's Kid A, released that year, that I'll always remember when I look back on starting work in Dublin and the music I got into then. Initially, I found that the sound on Loveless was quite uniform, and the songs tended to run into one another, were sometimes indistinguishable from each other. My taste in music was still a bit towards more linear and compact song forms, and Loveless was like an album-long song with different movements. Now that my taste has shifted towards longer moodier more layered stuff, the Valentines are firmly up there in my top 10 bands (NOT like the sodding Jesus & Mary Chain whom loads of critics claim were ripped off by MBV).

I did some more searching around, heard some more, and then heard about the legend that was The Holocaust, a noise piece at the end of the song 'You made me realize' that they expanded on (and increased the volume of!) in their live sets. At the time of reading all of this, the band had gone into one of the most epic hibernations in the history of rock music, and I had given up all hope of ever seeing them live with my own eyes.

Until recently, when I heard they had reformed, and were playing a series of gigs in London. My partner in gigging and drinking crime, Sarah Al, was duly contacted, and her presence requested (not to mention her payment, as I was too broke at the time of booking to pay for the tickets. Thanks babe). I contacted another friend, to gloat. "Wear earplugs", he warned me. "They can be ferociously loud".

We arrived Monday night. We came to the door of the venue and I did the usual last-minute frantic fumble for my ticket and eventually found it. Then I noticed that they were actually giving out complimentary pairs of earplugs. Just how loud can this lot be? I thought.

It's been a long time since I've been to a live gig, so memory does not serve me well, but I don't ever remember being at a gig as loud as this. The thing was, I can honestly say the experience was all the better for it (and I say experience, because that's what it was. Using 'songs' in this context would be like describing Francis Bacon's renderings as 'drawings'). There was no new material here - it's definitely nothing more than a reunion tour at the moment - but that was fine by me. I was there for the aural assault, the experience, the epiphany, not to mosh to power chords. I got pretty much all of these things. I got the trawl through Loveless (I'm still not too familiar with its predecessor, Isn't Anything). I got great background visuals. I got to ogle the cool Fender Jazzmaster guitars (I'd first fallen in love with these when I saw Robert Smith play one on the video for 10:15 Saturday Night). I got The Holocaust.

They launched into You Made Me Realize at the end. I knew then that anyone of a delicate disposition was in for it. The background visuals went from dreamy and surreal to stark and minimal. The end of the musical section was reached. The noise began. It grew, expanding to fill everyone's sensory space, roaring. People with loosely secured hair found it being moved back from their faces. The noise rose and rose, and then hit a plateau, where it was held for quite a while. A good 15 minutes altogether. I looked around and saw people looking towards the stage solemnly. Not everyone, though. Some people decided that they'd had enough, and walked out of the main hall. But there was no way I was going anywhere.

And then it ended. Quite abruptly, just like in the song. After The Holocaust came the exodus. We left too.

It wasn't a flawless performance: The vocals should have been higher in the mix, and they didn't play Loomer, my current all time favourite of theirs, but it came close. Save for these things, it would have been perfect. As was always the case, there was zero interaction with the crowd, or inter-song patter.

I saw loads of people make use of the earplugs at various stages during the night, especially towards the end. I didn't.

Ages ago, I bought the guitar chordbook for the Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. In it were a series of interviews Billy Corgan had given with some guitar magazine with his personal take on guitar playing and songwriting. One of the things he talked about, was how to motivate yourself and persevere, when you feel that geniuses before you have taken songwriting and the guitar to seemingly unsurpassable heights. In another interview he gave, he recalled how he heard Soundgarden's singing and riffing on their BadMotorFinger album, just before they were going in to record their debut Gish, and wondered how he was going to compete with that. Obviously he overcame that mental obstacle, but there's something of that with this band.

Anyone experimenting with heavy distorted or slow guitars in the future will inevitably be compared to My Bloody Valentine, amongst other bands. Part of it is lazy journalism, but part of it is that their fingerprints will be all over a lot of left-minded guitar playing for some time to come. But like Corgan, you can't help but think if something this incendiary has already been done, trying to surpass it might simply just be a waste of time.

Nah, but fuck it, it's going to be a bitch.

It's over!

The last while has been utterly mental. Manchester bear bash, death of someone who I've known for quite some time while living in Brighton, exams, funeral of said friend, more exams. But now, thank God in heaven, it's over. The last few days:

Thursday 5th June:

5pm: Leave exam hall after last exam and take advantage of the complimentary drinks in the Student's union. Everyone gets hammered. People cry, as they realise they may not see each other again ever. Denis also gets hammered and tries to bribe lecturers into giving him pass marks in the exams.

6pm: Denis and Dan break off from the crowd and go drinking elsewhere. We end up in a bar splitting a bottle of wine between us. Dan falls over. We move outside, away from the eyes of the bar staff.

10pm: June comes to collect Dan. Dan leaves. We hug each other goodbye in the pub.

11pm: Denis goes home, collects himself, and then decides, for some reason unbeknownst to everyone least of all himself, that he wants more alcohol, so heads into town to meet the rest of the class.

12am: Denis meets rest of class in town at nightclub. Denis and class shake their booty. Emotions run high, with all the alcohol, and the last-night-together feeling. Denis hugs them all, telling them it doesn't matter, that he loves them.

2am: Denis and class leave club. Damien decides that all the blokes should go skinny dipping. Never one to need a good reason to take off all his clothes, Denis goes for it. As Denis re-emerges from water, he sees a crowd of girls with digital cameras, all pointed in his direction, with flashes going off. Denis shouts at them, warning them that the pictures had better not end up on facebook.

2:20: While getting dressed, Denis realises that his underpants is missing. Denis demands to know where underpants is. No-one knows. Denis gets dressed without underpants. Another girl indignantly demands to know who took her shoes.

2:30: Everyone decides to go to Legends nightclub, a gay nightclub. Two of Denis's straight male classmates pull girls in there.

6am: Denis finally makes it home, falls into bed.

Friday 6th June:

12pm: Denis wakes up with a thundering hangover. Forces self to get dressed and heads out to Falmer to watch the Pharmacy lecturers play the final year pharmacy students at cricket. Students buck tradition of being trounced by the lecturers, by trouncing the lecturers.

3pm: Denis, Dan and others head off for pint with lecturers. A laugh is had.

6pm: Denis heads into town for more alcohol with class. Lots of alcohol is drunk. Denis tries to get into Walkabout, a horrible Aussie sports bar (the rest of the class have gone in there), but the arsehole bouncer on the door won't let him in. Denis goes home.

Saturday 7th June:

2am: Denis gets home, and sleeps for the best part of 24 hours.