oh, yeah, the MBV show...

I tried to flesh this out, but it's not improving or embellishing with time. Plus I only just now remembered this space existed. Consider this me hammering on the engine trying to get the thing to turn over.

Set List

I Only Said
When You Sleep
You Never Should
(When You Wake) You're Still in a Dream
Cigarette in Your Bed
Come in Alone
Only Shallow
Thorn
Nothing Much to Lose
To Here Knows When
Slow
Soon
Feed Me With Your Kiss
You Made Me Realise

Bilinda Butcher has to be the best preserved Englishwoman since Jane Seymour. FORTY SEVEN years and she still looks like a foxy gelfling. She has such a lack of stage presence, it’s almost the best stage presence ever. She does a great job of reminding you that rock is a noun as much as a verb, and an immobile one at that.

Despite the stories of just how loud the Valentines were back in the day and even without the complimentary ear plugs, I would have to say Sunn O))) is much louder. (also Francisco Lopez, Bloodlet, Shai-Hulud, others) But still, with the strobes and jet engine volume (recall the use of such recorded sounds to try and oust everyone from Manuel Noriega to David Koresh), I found myself thinking one man’s torture truly is another’s ecstasy (and wine).

I had a good time, I’d still pay the money if I had it to do the last month over again, but I don’t think I would go back a second time. It’s not that I didn’t find myself smiling and dancing (yes, dancing) from the get-go, but seeing them live felt more like closure rather than satiation. As if I were taking my place with the rest of Gen X, getting ready to crucify our ears, nailing them to the a crossbeam of the platonic psychedelic guitar sound.

On that note, the crowd indeed did make me feel less old than any other I’ve been to in the past few years.
They truly do have cross-generational appeal. Even if everyone basically looked the same, the sheer span of age on display made you think you were indeed in the presence of sound for the discerning.

Colm’s snare rolls on “Nothing Much To Lose” sound just as forced and out of place live as they do on record. Which is funny, because I’d always assumed his performance on the record was full of fuckups but they’d decided to leave it in anyways.

The samples were mixed horribly. There’s no excuse for that with the ticket price and amount of equipment and time at their disposal to get it right.