My Bloody Valentine aural assault

shazzz

Far king hell!!!

Anyone else at the Roundhouse this weekend?

The loudest gig I have ever heard, topped off with around 20 mins of pure white noise at the end. Mrs S had to leave the auditorium after about 15mins, as did many others. If anyone is going this week - accept the free earplugs. You WILL need them.

Photos and you tube give you an idea, but you really need to feel this......
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lensofdan/ ... 730115250/
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_po0RTKjsC8&fmt=18

CHRISNOIR

I'm seeing them in manchester this weekend and am fully braced for it! I was talking to a bloke at work who saw them in 1991ish - his mate went down the front during 'You Made Me Realise / The Holocaust' and re-appeared twenty minutes later covered in his own vomit it was that loud...

Was considering 'going bareback' but may use some aural protection...

mrushton

Wow, that must take a lot of talent to turn the volume up so high. I think I 'd prefer a great sound, just a tad quieter as opposed to making it clearly uncomfortable.

cabron

Yeah I went last night, I'm old enough to have seen them around Isn't Anything time and it was funny to see they don't appear to have changed at all, they were even wearing the same clothes. Shame there was no new stuff, the white noise in You Made Me Realise was just taking the p*ss ( I left after about 15 minutes with my fingers in my ears, as did a lot of people), but - it was MBV, so they could take a collective dump on stage and I'd still go and see them. ;-)

Wonder what people who just went along out of curiosity made of it all?! I noticed a lot of rather miserable looking wives / girlfriends that's for sure.. :-)

Matt-B

I thought it was awesome.

I'm just pleased I got to see them. Loveless is one of my favourite albums, and I had presumed I would never get to see them, so I was just pretty pleased to get the chance!

They were amazing as well, which helped.

iainf72

I'm going tomorrow night.

Psyched!

Are the vocals still mixed very very low?

CHRISNOIR

And, more importantly, is Bilinda Butcher still an indie kid's wet dream..? Big eyes, strumming a guitar, smiling sweetly as a sonic hurricane blasts round her. Mmmmm...

cabron

Yep, almost inaudible, but if you know the songs it's ok.

See if you can get Bilinda to crack a smile. Someone managed it last night (she even waved) and I could swear Kevin glared at her. He didn't seem to be enjoying himself much I must say.

I would agree with the other posters about the earplugs - take them, you only need them for the end bit in You Made Me Realise. The bass was making my nostrils flap about, it was pretty extreme.

MonkeyMurphia

i was there on saturday night. I've never really got into them but my mate bought the ticket and i went along. i thought the first half hour was really good, proper shoe gaze stuff but i couldn't understand the thing about the noise and the free ear plugs. then the gig started to meander a bit and i thought it was going to get boring but then that final 20 minute assault was absolutely mind blowing. totally relentless, completely tuneless but absolutely spell binding. i was completely blown away. me and my mate went home in some what of a daze, i was waxing lyrical and he could only describe it as being "confused".

i didn't get to sleep until about 4am. it was as close as i've ever came to a natural high.

shazzz

mrushton wrote:

Wow, that must take a lot of talent to turn the volume up so high. I think I 'd prefer a great sound, just a tad quieter as opposed to making it clearly uncomfortable.

Heh, heh - was expecting a few more comments like this!!! The sound quality was actually really good, and few could question their musical talents. The loudness is all part of the experience - this is nothing like sitting back in an easy chair and listening to a CD.

Are the vocals still mixed very very low?

Yep! And the drums are very high!

And, more importantly, is Bilinda Butcher still an indie kid's wet dream..?

She looks completely unchanged. I think she must have been cryogenically frozen 15 years ago. Debs is very cool, her tiny figure swaying around, wrestling a monstrous bass guitar like it's some kind of sea monster. Kevin Shields looks like a scruffy version of James May, but I guess he can be forgiven that...

iainf72

http://music.guardian.co.uk/live/story/ ... 83,00.html

Oooh, gettign more excited.

I shall use the ear plugs. I went to a Warp Records gig years ago which was so extremely loud my ears were ringing for days. And I quite like being able to hear.

ColinJ

Loud music is really great!

At least I thought so when I was in my teens/early twenties. I'd be the first to stick my head inside the bass bins, turn my headphones upto 11 when I got back from the pub and so on - yeah!!! People used to say I'd go deaf, but what did they know?

A few years down the line, my girlfriend used to ask why I never reacted when my stepdaughter was crying at night - answer I couldn't hear her from downstairs. In fact I wouldn't even believe that she was crying so I'd open the door downstairs (not a peep), walk up the stairs to the landing (not a peep) open the bedrrom door (oh, she was sat up in bed in floods of tears ).

I watch movies now and wonder why someone has stopped in mid-conversation, then they fish out a phone that I didn't hear ringing. I step the DVD back a few seconds and try again with an extra 12 dB on the amp... nope. Try again with 24 dB... nope. 36 dB - ah, the phone was ringing! 36 dB is a huge hearing loss.

I had a hearing test done a few years back after a doctor discovered that I couldn't hear a tuning fork vibrating about 2 inches behind my head. The results showed that I'd completely killed off certain frequencies and had big losses elsewhere. I really struggle with conversations where there is background noise. I also suffer from tinnitus in very quiet conditions

Hearing is a very precious thing. Use the earplugs folks and carry on enjoying the music!

cygnet

shazzz wrote:

Photos and you tube give you an idea, but you really need to feel this......

An inquiry this morning from a friend:
"... so did MBV untie you from the DC10 they strapped you to last night?"
which seems an apt description of how it felt.

I'm still buzzing from it (not literally)

Definately use the earplugs.

fluff.

Dug out YMMR afrer reading this, still sounds ace.

johnnyc71

I saw MBV in Newcastle back in the 90's. They were in the middle of their feedback extraganza - when they blew the house PA - I think it was a safety cut out. After 20 minutes, the sound crew manged to restore power - the band just went straight back into the mind numbing noise for another 15 minutes - it was great.

A little bit like putting your head into a jet engine on full thrust. It took about a week for my ears to stop ringing. Loudest band ever!

100%

I'm insanely jealous! Maybe one of those unhappy looking wives/girlfriends could have given me their ticket.

I know what you mean about the aural assaults though - Sonic Youth and Mogwai spring to mind for me. Over the last year to 18 months I'm starting to suspect that I'm seeing some slight effects too so I'm starting to be careful... Standing in front of my 120W Sound City all-tube stack making similar similar noises in the past probably didn't help either.

Hmmm The Roundhouse have just release some tickets for tomorrow night, but I don't want to sit in the balcony!

johnnyc71

100% wrote:

I know what you mean about the aural assaults though - Sonic Youth and Mogwai spring to mind for me.

I'd agree that Sonic Youth are loud, but from personal experience - they don't even come close to MBV for endangering your hearing!

biondino

Best gig I ever went to was MBV in 1991 at the Town and Country club. It was REALLY loud but it was perfect-mindf*ck-loud rather than ow-ow-ow loud, which they were when I saw them a few months later at Brixton.

I have much worse hearing in my right ear than my left. I used to stand at the right front at gigs in my teens, near the speaker stack. Coincidence?

Clever Pun

johnnyc71 wrote:

100% wrote:

I know what you mean about the aural assaults though - Sonic Youth and Mogwai spring to mind for me.

I'd agree that Sonic Youth are loud, but from personal experience - they don't even come close to MBV for endangering your hearing!

Sunn O))) are stupidly loud and are bordering on brown noise sometimes

whether you like them or not, the bass frequencies they use are crushing

in other news I'm off to see monster magnet tonight... they used to be so good, I'm ready for dissapointment

johnnyc71

Clever Pun wrote:

in other news I'm off to see monster magnet tonight... they used to be so good, I'm ready for dissapointment

I had the Spine of God lp by them in the early 90's fond memories of listening to it.

CHRISNOIR

johnnyc71 wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

in other news I'm off to see monster magnet tonight... they used to be so good, I'm ready for dissapointment

I had the Spine of God lp by them in the early 90's fond memories of listening to it.

I had tickets to see them at Manchester Boardwalk around the time of the 'Twin Earth' single (I think it was...) but when I arrived there was a note on the door saying they'd cancelled and 'gone back home'. Was gutted!

iainf72

Wow. Amazing show. So so loud but using the earplugs gave a nice experience.

YMMR was the nuts

shazzz

iainf72 wrote:

Wow. Amazing show. So so loud but using the earplugs gave a nice experience.

YMMR was the nuts

I think you've seen Sunn O))) before, right? I'd be interested to know how YMMR compared to a Sunn O))) noise attack.

I saw Radiohead last night. Very pleasant - great sound, fantastic light and video show. It was odd - every now and then Jonny G would ramp the guitar effects up a notch and I'd think they were going to break into a noise freakout. It never happened, though.

iainf72

shazzz wrote:

I think you've seen Sunn O))) before, right? I'd be interested to know how YMMR compared to a Sunn O))) noise attack.

Sunn 0))) just seem more bassy - I was surprised how much low end MBV had in there but Sunn really live in that spectrum.

I've seen a lot more intense noise sets - But those were proper noise artists like Merzbow and Russell Haswell. Merzbow in particular can be hard to stomach.

Have you ever heard Kevin Drumm? I recommend tracking down a copy of Sheer Hellish Miasma.

In others news, Belinda still looked fanciable 15 years on.

cygnet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/stevelamacq/ ... iving.html

Check the picture at the bottom. Yet they still stand and watch.

I saw Hecker at ATP once, but that was painful in a way that MBV weren't.

Clever Pun

johnnyc71 wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

in other news I'm off to see monster magnet tonight... they used to be so good, I'm ready for dissapointment

I had the Spine of God lp by them in the early 90's fond memories of listening to it.

Good album that... Dave's turned into a right fat bloater, it's just not right

Good call on the Merzbow thing... mentalist.... speaking of which I'm going to this soon


Earth are also a great heavy drone band (Sunn started as an Earth tribute)

shazzz

Make sure you take your earplugs to that, Mr Pun!
I wonder what Harmonia will be like.... reviews weren't great earlier this year. Gravetemple + JC should be good.
Nice to see Rolo Tomassi there - I watched LA confidential last night when I got home! Never heard the band though.

CHRISNOIR

Well, back from the Manchester gig, it's half-one the following afternoon and my ears are still having a bit of a hard time. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before! During 'The Holocaust' my trousers were flapping (I hope it was just the vibrations coming from the speakers...). After ten minutes you begin to hear things that aren't really there - I could swear there was a male voice choir in there somewhere but it's just the textures of sheer white noise. All in all a genuine jaw dropper of a gig!

iainf72

For those interested, there is a reasonable quality recording of one of the gigs on t'internet.

Use Google Blogs search and ye shall find.