Shoegazers' return

My Bloody Valentine speak on comeback tour and new material

20 June 2008 - Influential shoegazers get back on the road for the first time in 16 years, kicking off the tour at London’s Roundhouse tonight (20 June).

The show is the first of five London dates before they play two dates at Manchester’s Apollo from 28 June – winding up after two gigs in Glasgow on 2 July.

The tour follows two last minute shows at the ICA (13 & 14 June) which saw the band play six tracks from their album Loveless including a favourite Soon, and four tracks from their 1988 record, Isn ’t Anything .

Speaking exclusively to 6 Music the My Bloody Valentine singer and guitarist, Kevin Shields, said that this time round the upcoming shows are not weighing on his mind.

He said: “No, I mean we did a couple of warm up gigs and that was just with a little PA, no production, it was just like playing in a room. We know that when we do it properly, it’ll be alright I think.”

The bands show late last week appeared to be characteristically spontaneous, as Shields told 6 Music: “When we played on Friday that was the first time we played all the songs in a row, we hadn’t even done a rehearsal or anything, we just practiced a few songs a day.”

But the frontman was seemingly pleased with their decision to start the actual tour at the Roundhouse, telling 6 Music:

“We can do it properly, it’s gonna be as good a PA that’s ever been in there and that’s great. It’s about making it a physical total experience in a way.”

And they intend to make the comeback shows better than any of their older gigs, as Shields explained:

“We wanted to be better than we were, like all the things we hated about ourselves we wanted to eliminate but without being boring. We want to really represent the energy, feel like just after making a record feeling.”

"We want to really represent the energy, feel like just after making a record feeling."
Kevin Shields

New Material

The band split in 1997 with an extensive fan base but a fairly limited amount of albums in their back catalogue - but Shields revealed that they now have new material on the go, which was prompted by a lack of material to play at their gigs.

Shields said: “We haven’t got that many songs you see, we only have two albums. We never had that many great songs so the interesting thing about even doing a few gigs is that we’re already like, ‘God, we need new songs badly’.”

However, the prospect of new songs had been in their minds for some time.

“It’s nice to really need them as opposed to thinking it would be nice,” Shields said, “because we already had that we were like, ‘yeah we’re definitely gonna do new songs,’ and then we just didn’t get around to it - because it was hard enough to try and get our act together really.”

The musician then confirmed to 6 Music that they have begun writing again and intend to compile songs for a new album.

“We’re kinda working on new material now. I mean I’ve been writing a lot and that’s why were doing this, to make a new record,” he said.

The Reunion Decision

The My Bloody Valentine frontman also said that getting back together has been in their thoughts for a long time as well.

He claimed that the band’s relations were always amicable, but back in 1997 they just needed time apart.

Shields said: “Us four here have never fallen out, the nearest thing to falling out was when we all agreed when we turned thirty we were like, ‘you know what lets do our own thing as we’ve been together for ages. Let’s do our own thing and see what happens.’

“Now we’re forty five and were finally doing it again but we’d decided to do it for about five years.”

Georgie Rogers