My Bloody Valentine- 28/06/08 + 29/06/08, Manchester Apllo

At the weekend just gone, I saw My Bloody Valentine twice. Both gigs as a whole rank as the loudest, and most amazing gigs I've ever been to.

On the Saturday I was sitting and Sunday I was on the barrier. Two different experiences indeed. Support band Spectrum (featuring the legendary former Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom) were pretty damn good, hypnotising the crowd with drones and looped rythems.

My Bloody Valentine were just, wow. The sound was perfect. Their guitars washed over you and sent you to aural heaven. They didn't particularlly move much, and they barely spoke to the crowd, but they didn't need to. It was all about the music. When Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher's distorted guitars blasted through your eardrums there was no turning back. I felt awash with ecstacy hearing pratically all of Loveless being played and a large amount of Isn't Anything era material.

Colm O'Ciosoig was a pleasure to watching drumming. It was amazing seeing how he pull off both calm metronomic ticking like songs (To Here Knows When) and punk freakout songs (Feed Me With Your Kiss). Indeed those two songs were the ones I were most impressed with seeing. FMWYK, becuase of the furious energy Colm performed it with, particularlly on the saturday, and THKW, because of Kevin Shields absolutely glorious solo guitar work on the song giving it an almost spiritual feel.

The absolute highlight of the gigs though was their closing with You Made Me Realise. In the middle of the song, there's about 1 minute of noise. Live however, the band stretched this minute of noise to 20 minutes of drone. It was absolutely something else, and bizarrely enough I didn't get bored of it. After a few minutes I could start to hear subtle differences in the sound and a slow variation throughout. I dunno whether the band themselves were manipulating this or if it was just me, but it was awesome regardless.

I also cannot stress how loud it was too. Apparently the loudness was comparable to that of a jet engine. I'm very happy I took earplugs as my hearing would've been even worse than it already is, and currently I have a mild case of tinitus. Overall, my hearing hasn't been like this since I first started going to gigs.

It was a weekend I wasn't going to forget easily at all. I think the two gigs combined have already passed into my top 5 gigs ever. Everyone else has a lot to live up to now.

Saturday setlist:

I Only Said
When You Sleep
(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream
You Never Should
Lose My Breath
Come In Alone
Only Shallow
Thorn
Nothing Much To Lose
To Here Knows When
Blown A Wish
Slow
Soon
Feed Me With Your Kiss
Sueisfine
You Made Me Realise

Sunday setlist:

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

ps: I am aware the setlists were practically identical. They were both still amazing gigs.

pps: The absolute highlight of the weekend though, was after the saturday gig. I waited outside the stage door of the Apollo for 2 hours and eventually MBV came out to go to their hotel. I managed to get them to sign my copy of Loveless and get a picture too. I was a bizarre mixture of nervous/excited to meet them, and I wasn't disappointed as they were lovely.