Bloody loud!

Some time ago a coworker asked me if I wanted to see My Bloody Valentine who were touring again and stopping in Toronto. I had heard of them but wasn’t terribly familiar with them. So I listened to some of their material and it instantly reminded me of Lush (a band I love) and Curve (another band I like) so I figured why not. Well the show was tonight. What a show it was. I’ve been to maybe a hundred or so concerts and I’ve never been handed earplug at the door until tonight. It soon became apparent why.

The crowd was a curious mix of people. Since the band hasn’t released anything since 91 there has been a significant aging of original fans. So there were teens to late forties in the crowd. Overall a pretty docile bunch. The opening band wasn’t too bad. They were instrumental rock/noise with a horn and cello… they had some good moments. It would be interesting to hear their studio material. They were The Flowers of Hell. (Points for a great band name!) The second artist seemed out of place playing a largely acoustic set with some awkward distortion seemingly stuck in at the end of her songs. Her set didn’t fit at all. Maybe the quietness of the guitar only seemed to make the sonic assault from MBV appear to be that much louder.

MBV brought it. Loud. distorted, scratchy, noise with enough melody to keep your sanity. I was able to go with the earplugs for about 5-6 song then it became too much. Clearly a sonic assault was the expectation. The final song was a 20m? single note that drifted on and on and on and on threw waves and waves of distortion and feedback. It became a little much but was still interesting to behold. The songs they did play however were great. Perhaps overly heavy on guitar drowning the vocals but the catchy melodies and musical barrage was still very satisfying.

A fun night out with Raj. I got to meet the girl he is seeing. Amanda was quite nice. She also works in the gaming industry at Silicon Knights in St.Catharines. Raj’s photography buddy Steve (who I met before) also joined us. Anyway… Zzzzzzzzz. Night.

Eye Weekly Concert review. (sadly Weekly link now 404)