The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

Cheers, LBI! Reading it back it's a bit of a splurge, but they stirred up a weirdly affecting mix of emotions. I can't think of anyone before (or since) MBV who've been able to properly combine the crushingly heavy with such tenderness and seeing them live again really reminded me of this.

Thanks for that live link as well - very acceptable sound quality, although it reveals some *seriously* wonky lead guitar on Honeypower...

charlie, if you're reading: i've failed miserably to find anyone who wants your tix. sorry.

dammit, me neither! i'm next-day-delivering them to a mate in glasgow today anyway, in case she can shift them - i just want them to be used now, otherwise that's £60 i've spent on fuck-all.

if it's any consolation, my mate with a spare ticket for wed can't shift that either :(

that's not much consolation, sadly - all it means is there will be unused tickets, empty spaces and pissed off bank managers :-(

so that's an ilx count of five tickets for tonight and two for tomorrow, all going begging and no fucker wants them? are we all so old? meh.

grimly, Charlie, If I was in Glasgow today or tomorrow then trust me I'd want to see them again. Sorry you're facing wasted cash!

>so that's an ilx count of five tickets for tonight and two for tomorrow, all going begging and no fucker wants them? are we all so old? meh

It does seem like the promoters have slightly overestimated MBV's pulling power and that everybody who wants tickets has got them; there were lots of spares floating about for Manchester (on Saturday at least) and people were offering them outside for nothing rather than sell to touts. Realistically, they would never have been able to play two nights at the Apollo (3500 capacity) even in their heyday. I know the legend has grown over the years, and there were loads of "kids" at the show I went to, but I suppose the opposite is also true in that a fair amount of the more grizzled fans from the old days will not be bothered.

Yeah as I mentioned upthread I couldn't get rid of my wife's ticket when she couldn't make it. I decided to keep it in case I wanted to go out for a fag halfway through (no readmissions) rather than sell it to arsehole touts for 2 quid. In the end there was a smoking terrace anyway so I wouldn't have needed it.

Got my earplugs for tonight at the Barrowlands and I'll be tipping slightly-interested friends that there should be tickets to be had.

It's 20 years since Isn't Anything. Fucking hell.

And I'm still as sprightly as the day it was released! Uh.

I have a mate who bought tickets for tonight but now cannot go due to last minute interview for a job down South that he can't get back from in time. He's away already so no point in asking for a swap, but if anyone has a spare for tomorrow that would otherwise be going in the bin, let me know please? He would pay, but has already paid for a Wednesday ticket he can't get rid of.

Isn't the surfeit of tickets due to only three gigs being announced to start with before tons more got added due to promoter greed following the quick sale of the first lot, meaning that lots of Londoners have tickets for out-of-town gigs they don't need to go to now?

ailsa, mail me offlist (starsandheroes at your friendly favourite search engine's mail service) - i have two spares for tomorrow which i can't shift - you chum's welcome to them if my "fence" in glasgow hasn't managed to get rid of them today already (the tickets are up there already so your mate will have to pick up tomorrow).

also, your theory re surplus tickets is 100% precisely what happened to me, so yes you're probably right!

Like, as if they were going to miss London out!

Yay, just found out my mate has got a ticket for me for tonight in Glasgow.

nonono mark, they announced like two london dates which sold out in seconds, but i managed to get glasgow tickets before they sold out, and then they announced a load more london dates, one of which i ended up going to, hence no longer need to go all the way to glasgow to see them, hence two spare tickets for glasgow, y'see?

ah.

bump for ailsa - let me know asap, apparently someone's close to buying both of my spares for tomorrow!

No, just go ahead if you can get money for them. I haven't mentioned this to him, and I hope he doesn't lurk on here (sorry Ewan, if you do!), but I'm sure he'll understand that you'd rather take money for them if necessary. Let me know via here if they don't go.

charlie: if you're reading, there's a chance that -- yes! -- malcolm middleton will take one of your tickets. not sure, though. i'll e-mail you too.

my spares have gone now i'm afraid... although surely resident pop luminaries get a free pass?

yeh, i imagine any pop luminaries might.

malcolm won't, though.

<ker-tish, boom>

Erm you guys, does anyone know anyone with any more spares for tonight? SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS has JUST looked at our tickets and OMG they are for YESTERDAY! HELP!! HELP!! HELP!!!!

(this someone is NOT ME, all right?)

I am going to be off the internet in about half an hour - Grimly, since you're around on this thread, please be my ticket co-ordinator while I go and smack people round the head and I will see you in the pub later. I should be contactable by phone for most of the afternoon.

OMG!

Hope you can still make it!

What time were MBV on and offstage last night?

The Pastels are support tonight btw. On at 7.45pm according to the lady on the phone at the barras. She said mbv were on at around 9ish and it will finish by 11.

They were on about 9:20 when I went and I was outside about 11:05, but it did take bloody ages getting out of the venue, so they probably finished about 10:50. I got in at 8.05 and the support band were already onstage, but I heard they'd only played 1 song.

haha there's people over on the DFFD (ex Southern Lord) board complaining they weren't as loud as when they saw them nearly 20 years ago.

no, they're all just old and deaf now.

and the guys on DFFD are probably the same ;)

http://www.extrememortman.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/Rim%20Shot%20Johnny%20Utah.jpg

The gig was actually quite quiet, only when they got to the holocaust bit did it get loud. And it was very loud, but I was standing up the back and there it was not overwhelmingly so and I didn't need to make use of my earplugs. Ringing in my ears has subsided.

I thought the gig as a whole was a bit of a mixed bag. Some great moments but some of the songs I didn't feel were as good in the live setting because of the importance of the production on Loveless to lift the songs above the pedestrian and the inability to recreate that in the live setting was evident at times. Some very sloppy moments with the drumming speeding up and leaving the taped leads trailing behind for quite long spells at times as well. But "You made me realise" was pretty much flawless.

We got in. I loved it. No earplugs for me because I am hard as nails, though my collarbone, teeth, ribcage etc feel slightly more rattly than they did when I went in. Dull roar in ears at the moment (like I'm holding a seashell up to them), but anticipate no long term damage, if they still feel like that tomorrow I'll be very surprised. I stood by the door at the 20 minute noise-fest and laughed at hipsters running out with their hands over their ears, which was more entertaining than listening to shit going nowhere forever. Found myself getting bored at the end of "Soon" when I realised I'd been listening to exactly the same thing for about five minutes and it had stopped having any sort of effect on me, but other than that it was mostly cracking.

Dull roar in ears at the moment (like I'm holding a seashell up to them), but anticipate no long term damage, if they still feel like that tomorrow I'll be very surprised.

Better sorry than safe, of course.

;-)

Ailsa is hard, she refused my spare earplugs!
Great gig, thoroughly enjoyed it as did grimlyfiendish who i was stood with throughout. We were glad of earplugs. No ringing in my ears or anything. I could actually hear as normal outside. Those wax earplugs were awesome! The 20 mins of noise had the floor rattling like at a Sunn o))) gig. Its hard to say who are louder (except a sunn gig at this noise level lasts 90 odd mins. )
Was nice to meet everyone. Sorry i didnt get the chance to speak with anyone at the end, but i had to go find my mate who was hiding up the back somewhere.

I've never seen Motorhead but i bet they're still louder.

I figured since I managed Envy being so loud at ATP that Battles had to turn up the volume in the venue next door to be heard properly (and I'd seen Battles the night before, they were pretty loud themselves) without earplugs and no damage, that this would be a skoosh. And it was. It was the jangling to the body that affected me more than the actual effect on my ears, which are absolutely fine this morning.

Haha, I was wondering whether you'd use Envy as a comparison at some point.

Obvious one though, innit?

MBV were actually louder than Motorhead. OK, I was a lot younger then, and my ears may have lost sensation, but that would make me think MBV were quieter, wouldn't it?

It may have been the room as much as the sound system. My previous loudest gig ever was actually Harmony Rockets at the Brooklyn Anchorage - it's those boomy hollow round spaces that really do your ears in. While Motorhead were an open air gig.

they totally kicked my arse in glasgow. just stunning.

was relatively ambivalent but curious beforehand, and now I have the irritating evangelical zeal of a new convert.

Loudest gig I've been to is still JAMC in '98, but that was at a small venue, the actual volume was likely lower than MBV at Roundhouse but it deafened me for days. I couldn't hear my own voice after the gig. Hardly had any ringing in my ears the day after MBV, and I didn't use the earplugs.

I've never seen Motorhead but i bet they're still louder

i saw motorhead at the barras some years ago and they were nowhere near as loud (although kate's caveat, above, also applies, i guess!)

anyway: that was astonishing. just ... mesmerising. i actually took my earplugs out for the majority of it (thought you'd noticed that, herman!) but shoved them back in a couple of songs before the end, when there seemed to be a noticeable increase in intensity. we were roughly in the middle of the floor, a little towards the back: there is NO WAY i could have listened to the holocaust bit without plugs. as kate said upthread: you feel the thing. you don't need to hear every bit of it. i took the plugs out briefly at a couple of points to see what it sounded like; and i took them out again right for the very last bit (when they blast back into the YMMR beat etc), which was maybe a minute: that was pulverising enough.

maybe a slight ringing in my ears today if i'm honest, but nowhere near as bad as i've had before. then again: maybe that's just because the damage is already done :(

it was superb to finally meet herman (phil was very impressed/awestruck by your jacket), and top to see ailsa and her distinguished guests. (where did you actually end up for the gig, after we hoyed in to the crowd? i thought you lot were following us.) i ended up going to mono with john from mogwai on the way home -- he's mates with big chris. he was in raptures about the gig, which has to be a good sign for all us mogwai-lovers. luckily, the bar closed at midnight otherwise i'm not sure when we'd have stopped: there was a certain degree of post-gig euphoria -- although both john and chris did say they were surprised by how raggedy some of kevin's playing was. can't say i noticed/was bothered.

(big chris is also friendly with the dude who does the monitor setup at the barras: i'm absolutely fascinated as to how that works for MBV -- ie what the band can hear during you made me realise! -- and will try to find out.)

highlights for me: obviously YMMR. "soon" was something approaching a spiritual experience; but it was "to here knows when" that really transported me to some other magical dimension, with guitar-playing angels speeding my way.

so yeh, i kinda liked it.

I saw you taking them out at times but you always put them back in I thought.
Ahh, he did say he liked my Khanate hoodie.

Sorry, grimly, didn't see where you'd gone when you went, I turned to talk to T & K and when I looked round again, you'd vanished and you're not very easy to spot in a crowd full of tall people :-) We were to the right of the stage quite near the front, though I went wandering back for a while to go and look at at wibbly projections and lights and stuff because the full effect wasn't in full effect where we were standing.

I saw grimly move and just followed him. I assumed everyone else was following. We pretty much moved in a straight line from where we were standing into near enough the middle. Just to the left of Kevin Shields.
Then after some big guy almost got in a fight with a wee guy and his girl, they moved away, and we took their spaces and at last we could see!

ha! yes, that was damned lucky. in fairness: the wee bloke did seem to have been unnecessarily antagonistic, in a slightly foolish way. but yeh, result: the little dude nashed off with his lass, and we got a much better place to stand :)

Naw, the big guy shoved his way by pushing loads out the road. He was understandably pissed off. But the big guy saw him and confronted him while the wee guys girl tried to calm big dude down.

hmm. maybe i'm being unfair on the wee dude. even so: it's just not worth rising to these things.

I noticed the guys standing behind us are regulars at Sunn o))) gigs. No holding their ears in pain from them.

I'm predicting, in future shows, a new game will be created

You Made Me Realise Chicken

Whoever removes the earplugs for the shortest time is the loser, lol.