My Bloody Valentine: Live at Aviva Studios, Manchester

Writing about the Irish shoegaze band’s live comeback in 2008, I reflected on their unique relationship with volume:

“At various intervals tonight, I can genuinely feel my thorax vibrating. I can almost visualise the ossicles in my ears whirring away like miniature pneumatic drills, conducting the thunderous noise of the band, those little hammers and anvils beating in time with Colm Ó Cíosóig’s powerful, metronomic drumming.”

I went on to describe “You Made Me Realise” as a thirty-minute ear-splitting monster:

“To say the noise levels during the extended noise section are uncomfortable would be a gross understatement: I try taking my earplugs out for a minute, and I can barely believe it. Those ossicles I was talking about are presumably in the process of constructing a picket line as I insert the little foam protectors back into my ear canals.”

If this sounds vivid to the point of ridiculousness, you probably haven’t experienced the cacophonous sonic assault of an MBV show. My Bloody Valentine: keeping audiologists in business since 1983.

The band members may be in their early sixties now, but on the evidence of tonight’s spellbinding show at the Aviva Warehouse in Manchester—a cavernous industrial hall completely lacking in toilet facilities—they still know how to make one hell of a noise.

Of course, shoegaze is quite a forgiving genre to the ageing artist. With the vocals buried low in the mix, drowned out by a reverberating racket of guitar, it doesn’t really matter if you can’t hit the same notes you managed 35 years earlier—no one will notice. Ok, I noticed a bit, especially on the quieter tracks (“Cigarette In Your Bed” was a particularly striking example), but it was hardly a deal-breaker.

Despite a lengthy live hiatus, watching the MBV rhythm section propel the band through nineteen tracks in just under two hours is an awesome spectacle. Debbie Googe and Colm Ó Cíosóig are utterly flawless, perfectly in sync, and ferociously powerful. Aside from a few off-key vocals, Bilinda Butcher and Kevin Shields sound fantastic too, and even a series of power cuts during “Soon” couldn’t dampen their spirits. After dedicating the exhilarating “Soon” to Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield, the electrical outages prompted Butcher to suggest “maybe it’s Mani fucking around?” which raised bittersweet smiles amongst the Manchester crowd.

Predictably, set closer “You Made Me Realise” proved too much for some audience members who had earlier scoffed at the free earplugs on offer. Even with my ears comfortably protected, it still provided a raucous eight minutes of extreme noise. I’ll never tire of the seamless transition back into that wonderful chorus, though. It’s a great party trick and one of my favourite moments in live music.

The passage of time has not dulled My Bloody Valentine’s potency. Catch them while you still can—and please look after your ears.