The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

I was worried for the Apollo itself rather than health and safety.

did you go to the Apollo one, Nick?

Or were there two? I went on Tuesday night

My whole seat was shaking during YMMR on Tuesday. So glad I had 17dB professional earplugs - could hear whole spectrum of sound during the gig, and then could hear properly afterwards.

I was there last night.

I think I spotted you at the bar at one point actually, ithappens.

I was there last night too, and had p much exactly the same processes as yous, dog latin and Crackle Box. I felt that Wonder 2 was kinda diminished by having to follow You Made Me Realise, my head was so comprehensively in another place and took hours to regain some semblance of normalcy.

It's funny, because it wasn't until after the show that I came to realise just how much I'd enjoyed it. While I was there I kind of felt like I was enduring something that I ought to like, but afterwards I was just 'fuck I've gotta go home and listen to New You again and again'

I was lolling my head off all through the volcano bit.

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/03/15/inside-a-volcano-of-sound-my-bloody-valentine-live/

what was the song with the really wiggly guitar line played by kevin, loads of tremelo arm, a single line melody, the note bending all over the place, quite heavy?

Come in alone, or Only tomorrow, spring to mind.

ah i think it was "thorn"

does anyone know what the people hanging around behind Bilinda's amps were doing? Was it solely guitar tuning or was there perhaps a bit of sneaky additional keyboard work on the go back there?

there was another girl playing keyboards at times iirc wipd biwd

oh yeah... "you're a very japanese crowd"

Just guitar techs as far as I know - there's a girl playing keyboards on New you and wonder 2, and guitar on Only tomorrow. There's a fair bit of obvious backing track stuff happening so I don't think they'd need sneaky additional playing.

At the Glasgow show I was sure there was a song where Bilinda changed guitar at the beginning and end, and didn't play it at all inbetween but I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.

(xps) Good blog, Nick. I watched without ear plugs last time round (2008) and the 10-minutes or whatever it was in the middle of You Made Me Realise was actually excruciating. For a day or two I was worried that I'd permanently damaged my hearing. This time round I decided to give it a miss - going to a gig with ear plugs seems a bit daft (like going to a gallery with a blindfold on) (but not one that totally obscures your vision) (maybe some kind of veil) (with sunglasses on top).

Going to a gig w ear plugs is smart, not daft. Esp. if you go to them regularly.

Co sign

the only daft thing is not wearing ear plugs at a gig. Or not going because you wont wear ear plugs

if you go to MBV (or Mogwai, or lots of things) without earpugs do not come and complain to me when you are deaf

what?

btw if you see Sunn 0))) ,you know that 20 min burst of volume you get at MBV or Mogwai gigs at the end? Well you get it from start to finish!

mogwai's "loud shows" is the only gimmick left for this declining band imo.
i never understood why they are so loud live, as oppose to their relatively quiet records. whats the excuse?

Well quiet records is so you can turn them up loud without them distorting.

Loud gigs is because live music is a very different thing to recorded music.

true, but the correlation in this case is problematic to me

i can understand why MBV, Dinosaur, Sonic Youth etc.. are loud live bands.

Slint,for example, who resemble mogwai style, are quieter.

i saw mogwai once, and though the loud effect was exciting, afterwards i thought that this was the only virtue of the show, and without it, the show might have been kinda boring.

Well that's cos Mogwai's music is intrinsically boring, even loud.

which strengthen my argument, that the loud live show becomes a sort of a gimmick

ehhhh, i don't know about it being a "gimmick". being loud is a musical decision that affects how the listener experiences the song.

low plays very slowly (or, they used to). if they would speed up their songs to a medium tempo, it wouldn't feel the same. is low playing slowly a gimmick too?

I think the argument is more that if every live show had Low doing their songs at sprightly upbeat tempos, that would be a gimmick.

yeah, cause they play slow on records too, arent they?

oh, i must be misunderstanding what nostomo was saying. mogwai is loud on their albums (at the climax of many of their songs, at least), and they're also really loud in concert. and then nostormo was saying that without the loudness, the show would have been boring, and that it was sort of a gimmick. so all i'm saying is just that low is slow, both on their records and live. so is that a gimmick too?

anyway, no big deal

I think you're missing this key sentence: i never understood why they are so loud live, as oppose to their relatively quiet records. whats the excuse?

"mogwai is loud on their albums (at the climax of many of their songs, at least)"

arguable.

at the show,i remember they blew my ears from the FIRST Bass note.

anyway, no big deal

oh, whoops! sorry, i was kind of skimming this thread in between pounding out last minute emails here at work.

Mogwai albums are only ad loud as you put your stereo surely? I've always thought of them as a loud band.

If you are a regular gig goer get flat response moulded earplugs. Expensive, but the best investment you will make, and will save you many times that amount on hearing aids when older.

I like quite a few of Mogwai's albums but I found their live show boring, and pointlessly loud.

My LP/CD copy of m b v arrived unscathed despite the comedy packaging. I sat it on the table and my cat hopped up, looked at it thoughtfully, then reached out a paw and scratched three claws into the sleeve.

When my blood pressure had returned to normal I put the CD on (turntable out of commission) and fuck me if the mixes don't gel far better. I had been playing 24/48 ALAC via my phone in a dock, but my CD player is a fairly decent Rotel 971 and makes most albums sound pretty good. So I'm still glad to buy physical media.

Mogwai tricked me cos of the whole "post rock quiet on record" thing and I saw them in 2002 sans earplugs, and after a 10 minute "My Father My King" I went outside for a smoke and could not hear anyone talking for about half an hour, I remain convinced that gig singlehandedly damaged my hearing severely.

I of course went to both MBV gigs with pro earplugs as a result (my hearing's screwed for other reasons so I now cant risk it any further).

Hey had this been linked here before? Interview with Bilinda back in October!

http://totallydublin.ie/music/music-features/butchers-block/

thanks ned

Very interesting interview, thanks for that.

For some people, Loveless is looked upon as the Holy Grail of indie rock and people say that you would never ever make an album better than that. What do you think?

Now I think it’s a good thing we never released anything more. It would just have been a charade.

To be fair, that was from 2007 before even the first reunion shows.

Must have been.

That comes from my grandfather. If I’d been a guy I would have been named Bill, but since I was a girl it became Bilinda. John Peel once said on his show that I was being pretentious and tried to be special by spelling my name differently. That bugged me. That’s the name I was given, it’s in my passport! But I didn’t have the energy to write in and complain.

The song titles were really twee, like Sunny Sundae Smile and Paint a Rainbow. It sounds very innocent but the lyrics were very dirty. Paint a Rainbow is about necrophilia and there’s some really disturbing images in that song.

o_0 HOW DID I NOT REALISE THIS WTF.

What about the Shield's mix of Mogwai Fear Satan?

its fun to revisit the lyrics of Paint a Rainbow when you find out what the song is about