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BAD FRIDAY!
Peluché,
Dead Coast,
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Calva Louise,
Flights of Helios,
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The Windmill, Brixton
Good Friday, 14th April 2017
3pm till late

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Gig Review

My Bloody Valentine
London, Roundhouse

Article written by Ged M - Jul 7, 2008

My Bloody Valentine

The earplugs handed out at the door are no gimmick. What you remembered or just heard about MBV is true; on the last of five nights at the Roundhouse, the volume levels that are comfortable for psych-rock support band Spectrum (and muted for the DJ set in between) became a jet blast of hot noise as MBV shuffle onstage and then rise to ‘earthquake’ levels at the climax, the 25 minute endurance test of ‘You Made Me Realise’. I went for a slash about then and the whole building seemed to be groaning in sympathy ( I hope the architects had “MBV reformation” in their project brief when they refurbished the Roundhouse). It’s loud but not gratuitously so; and it’s easy to hear the songs at the heart of the sculpted waves of noise, like the combustible ‘Soon’, ‘I Only Said’ and ‘(When You Wake) You’re Still Asleep’. The live sound owes everything to drummer Colm O’Ciosóig and the way he propels the songs, structuring them and bookending them with his rolls. I don’t dare approach the stage too closely (I’d need better protection than the cheap plastic plugs offered) but it looks as if the band have barely changed in the past 15 years; we knew from seeing him around town at gigs that Kevin Shields has grown his hair but Belinda looks exactly the same. The gig is excellent: no simple reformation cash-in like many bands but genuinely exciting and frontier pushing; in a world of bland career-indie, MBV clearly have much more to give, if they overcome their legendary slothfulness.

Links:
http://www.mybloodyvalentine.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/mybloodyvalentine