Live Review: My Bloody Valentine (Enmore Theatre, Sydney

Live Review: My Bloody Valentine (Enmore Theatre, Sydney What are the chances, really? A new My Bloody Valentine album and a live show all in the same week? After all, they’ve just released an album that should have been in our record collections for 22 years. ‘MBV’ is the long awaited follow up to 1991’s ‘Loveless’, there was speculation that they’d fuck it up along with the legacy. Thankfully this wasn’t the case, it exceeded a lot of expectations and received mostly wide-spread critical acclaim. To say that it sits seamlessly alongside ‘Loveless’ would be a pretty strong statement. After all ‘Loveless’ was a masterpiece and monster of an album, almost sending Creation records broke but ultimately almost single handedly defining the shoegaze genre. ‘MBV’ does feel like the missing piece of the puzzle and also has a certain timeless quality about it. A little gentler on the eardrums that it’s predecessors.

The gig gods are showering down the goods for the start of 2013, Stone Roses, Public Image Limited and My Bloody Valentine in the space of a couple of months. I missed all of these bands first time round, so finally getting to see the band that equally bemused and delighted me as an angsty teenager was a fantastic prospect.

Free ear plugs being handed out on the door doesn’t really come as a surprise, even though I’ve never seen it happen before. MBV are renowned for playing ear splittingly loud sets.

No mucking around as they plough straight into the iconic ‘I Only Said’. At this point I realise the ear plugs are the way forward. The sound is just massive, like a freight train passing 10 feet away. Coupled with the mesmerising ‘When You Sleep’, it was a joy to watch Kevin Shields at such close range and see the precision in the tremolo work needed to create their sound.

We’re then treated to ‘New You’ from the most recent release, which sounds like a single to me. Not a single that would take the mainstream by storm, but definitely one of the more accessible tracks from the album. It effortlessly flows into the set and sounds very much like it was one of the songs penned in 1992, even the drumming has a distinct ‘baggy’ quality that would be fitting of the time.

The set list was very balanced drawing from all three albums and likes of ‘Honey Power’ and ‘Cigarette In Your Bed’ from the EP’s.

The opening riff from ‘Nothing Much To Lose’ was enough to make me retreat to the bar to momentarily take a break from the intensity of the volume. From a distance it becomes easier to pick out the different layers. It’s also the most packed I’ve seen the Enmore Theatre dance floor for a while.

Highlight of the evening was the sublime ‘Soon’, which is probably the closest MBV get to a dance tune. It’s a demonstration of why every band wanted to be them. Several years of trying to ‘find’ their sound certainly paid off, they don’t sound like any other band. It’s almost hypnotic when MBV hit the groove, they could have easily played ‘Soon’ for another 10 minutes and no one would have cared.

Crowd interaction was kept to a minimum, barely a word spoken and no encore. Oddly enough it was guitarist Bilinda Butcher that broke the silence, cracking a joke about her outfit looking like an air hostess which seemed pretty out of character. Perhaps a little more relaxed being the end of the tour or maybe because there were no signs of the sound difficulties that plagued their Melbourne ATP set.

I’ve always been a fan of the vocal mix being so low and caught up in a wall of sound, it makes it so haunting and murky. Surely this vocal style was a large influence for other great bands like Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Shocking Pinks.

‘You Made Me Realise’ was one the most brutal songs I’ve witnessed live. A clear 15 minutes of hectic jamming in the middle during which numerous members of the audience were grimacing hard and one or two chose to head for the exit. It had a certain comedic element to it that 12 minutes in and there was no letting up, it had to be a test for any fair weather fans out there. Intense to say the least, it was an absolute barrage of noise and thoroughly entertaining at the same time.

Definitely not a ‘cash in’ of a reunion tour, it makes you realise why MBV are constantly and highly lauded. They remain one of the most influential bands of our time. If you ever have the chance to see them, it’ll be something you won’t forget for a very long time. Might take a while for your ears to stop ringing too.

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