As the crowd filed into the Palladium Ballroom on Wednesday night, each person was handed a fresh pair of earplugs. While the protective devices are not an uncommon sight at rock shows, it's rare when a band insists on providing them.
But then, most bands don't have My Bloody Valentine's reputation.
Fronted by the enigmatic, exacting Kevin Shields, the Dublin-formed and London-based foursome (vocalist-guitarist Bilinda Butcher, bassist Debbie Googe and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig ) lived up to its billing as one of music's loudest acts. Indeed, the finale – "You Made Me Realise" – was capped by nearly 15 minutes of sustained, tooth-rattling, gut-thumping cacophony; there was a veritable blizzard of feedback, some white noise, and, buried somewhere in there, the crash of Ó Cíosóig's cymbals.
For 90 minutes, from within a cocoon of dense, strobe-lit murk, My Bloody Valentine – which kept the stage patter to an absolute minimum – riveted a sadly thin but nevertheless ecstatic audience. Visceral in every sense of the word, the punishing wall of sound reeled from Shields' and Butcher's barely there vocals to spiraling guitar lines to thudding, breath-catching bass to cascading percussion.
My Bloody Valentine, which has only five U.S. dates scheduled, delivered the sort of performance that sticks with you long after the house lights come up and one which will surely be remembered come year's end. It's difficult to articulate precisely what it meant – and most crucially, felt like – to see and hear one of the most respected bands in the world do what it loves.
Part 1 isn't working for me.. anyone else having problems?
ReplyDeletelinks broke
ReplyDeletehaving problems downloading both parts. Any chance you could re up them?
ReplyDeleteactually, just having a problem with part 1.
ReplyDeleteSeems to be working ok now.
ReplyDeletetrack 6 in part one is corrupted
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recording.
ReplyDeleteAbove is right, Come in Alone is corrupt...
Any chance of fixing it for us??
It's such a shame to not have the complete show, because the recording is really good!!!
THANK YOU!!!
I've re-uploaded Part One which now seems to work fine. Should be no more probs
ReplyDeleteok
ReplyDeleteTrack 6 Come in Alone is still corrupt, any chance of upping just that track on its own? Many thanks for sharing this,
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Percy
Part 2 is not working.
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing....would it be possible to get a lossless copy?
ReplyDeletethanks
nevermind, i've already got this in lossless format, i was thinking (hoping) it might be a different taper. thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAny idea whether Josh Pearson's support set was taped?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this.
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ReplyDeleteFor me i need to make this manageable from the front end but the one thing i would like is the ability to sign out and sign in a document, for when changes are being made to a core document for instance.
ReplyDeleteOnce again excellent work.