Review: My Bloody Valentine

Roundhouse Comeback

21 June 2008 - After sixteen years away from the live stage, My Bloody Valentine finally made their comeback at The Roundhouse in London’s Camden Town for the first of a five night residency.

In an era totally awash with reunion tours, it’s still hard to believe that a band so surrounded by myth, anticipation and silence like My Bloody Valentine have actually managed to get it to this stage at all.

Die-hard fans with a little more expendable income were treated to a sneak preview of what’s on offer last weekend when the band performed two ‘warm-ups’ at the ICA in London.

On-stage at the ICA, frontman Kevin Shields made it clear to the audience that these two pre-shows were just that and that the actual ‘comeback’ clearly began with these Roundhouse gigs.

Tonight, the band took to a stage sagging under the excessive weight of amps, guitar pedals and strobe lights to rapturous applause befitting an outfit so heaped in cult praise.

Performing an almost identical set to their ICA warm-ups, the band blistered through a setlist compiled wholly out of their post-jangle Creation Records period.

A blistering version of ‘Only Shallow’ opened up proceedings in the same brutal yet beautiful way it introduces the listener to the bands most revered album ‘Loveless’.

The clarity of sound and the freshness of performance made you feel that either the album was freshly released or we’d all just been unknowingly transported back 17 years.

The offerings from the bands debut Creation album ‘Isn’t Anything’ were well received but there was a noticeable rush of energy when the band launched into anything from their second, critically acclaimed album ‘Loveless’.

The clarity of sound and the freshness of performance made you feel that either the album was freshly released or we’d all just been unknowingly transported back 17 years 

On entering the venue, signs were dotted around warning of the obvious use of strobes but also offering free earplugs in anticipation of the punishing noise levels.

In contrast, the gig actually kicked off at a rather acceptable level forcing everyone into a false sense of security as they casually dropped their unemployed earplugs onto the ground along with their empty plastic pint cups.

It was only during the instrumental coda of ‘I Only Said’ half way through the set that sound levels were steadily pushed up to a point where your ears were clearly distorting along with the amps.

It quickly became apparent that hastily concocted earplugs fashioned out of stray fag-ends weren’t going to be any deterrent to the onslaught of tinnitus.

Backed by a somewhat psychedelic video backdrop and random strobe pulses, the band ploughed on through their Creation back-catalogue without ever loosing direction.

The gig highlight naturally came from the blissed out jangle of Loveless ender ‘Soon’ - the nearest the band came to a straight up Indie/Dance crossover track in the early nineties.

The grand finale was brought courtesy of the bands first ever Creation release ‘You Made Me Realise’. The track clocked in at just over 18 minutes but, in reality, only the first two minutes were actual song.

The final sixteen minutes was given over to an ear bleeding white noise 16 minute sonic-assault that, back in the day was referred to as ‘The Holocaust’.

The band left the stage having said nothing to the audience aside from testing the mics at the beginning with a brief ‘1-2’.

The encore wasn’t provided by the band but provided by your own ears desperately trying to minimise their damage through a wall of high pitched damage.




Adam Dineen