Rarely has there ever been a band surrounded by more whispers, adoration, and mystique than shoegaze legends My Bloody Valentine.
The release of their 1991 album Loveless reportedly pushed their record company to the brink of bankruptcy, almost deafened two of their members, and the 22 years that followed were disturbingly quiet for one of the loudest bands on earth.
Everyone remembers the first time they heard My Bloody Valentine. Personally, it was at Melbourne’s dearly departed Pony bar at some ungodly hour between 4am and lunchtime.
The DJ played “When You Sleep” and the thought to be scraped together at that point was “this sounds like being in a dream.” All that remained the next day was a dry mouth and a note reading My Bloody Valentine, scrawled by an obliging friend.
Fast forward to 2013 and the band has not only made their way to Australian shores to play The Drones-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties; they also unexpectedly dropped a new album, m b v.
This highly anticipated and rare treat further swell the expectations of the sold out, jostling crowd pushing their way to the front of stage and looming down from the soaring balconies inside The Palace.
As the lights drop, a gentle sounding lullaby begins and consciously or not, a few hundred hands fly up to the ear plugs doled out by security on the way in. The tinkling music plays for a good five minutes, expanding the moment until the band finally glide out of the shadows.
“I Only Said” screams out its signature hook and all at once it is apparent why ear plugs are almost compulsory. The vocals of both Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher are mixed low, so much so that they often disappear altogether; “When You Sleep” sees Butcher’s vocals sneak through a little before the brilliant crush of music steals them away again.
Colm Ó Cíosóig’s snare heavy drums are more often than not the saving grace that prevent most of the tracks from becoming musical black holes in a live setting.
During new track “New You”, the thought ‘this isn’t so loud after all’ begins to creep in. Smiling and retrieving the cosily dug in ear plugs, the warnings of a MBV assault seem a tad hysterical.
This fleeting moment of hubris is forgotten as “You Never Should” comes shrieking out of Shields’ guitar, which he wields like a weapon of sublime ear torture.
It feels as though had the railings not been clasped so tightly under white knuckles, being thrown across the room by the sound alone would not be too much of a stretch. It is isn’t just the volume, it is the way the sound bends around the room, attacking from all angles; it is just as disorienting as it is wonderful.
The biggest cheer of the night goes to “Soon” and the mesmerised crowd manages to come back to earth for long enough to sway from side to side uncomfortably in the stifling room.
The greatest divider of the evening is closing track “You Made Me Realise”, well known for the extended sonic apocalypse in its tail end. The brutal sound of what sounds like a million chainsaws is so loud and ceaseless that it is quite distressing, then boring, then distressing again, and then finally (20 minutes later) over.
For the entire show, the band says very little, letting their deeply introspective, darkly beautiful music speak for them.
In essence, they are the best and worst band one can ever hope to write about as their show is so intense, so gut wrenching, so intimidatingly loud that trying to tear one’s eyes away for a moment to take notes is quite simply tortuous.
In one short tour My Bloody Valentine have made all others wading around in their genre look like grasping, clueless rip-offs. The tinnitus will fade, the memory will not.
