my bloody valentine, ringtone rap and samuel beckett

plug one, plug two. plug one ...

for the un-initiate, my bloody valentine's reputation as the loudest, laziest and most lauded of all-time arty-album auteurs precedes them. hence their reunion, an expensive five-night residency at camden's mighty attractive roundhouse (which is hosting el hijo del santo and his fellow luchadores this week - great work).

mbv seized the crown of most-pretentiously-reviewed-2008-indie-comeback even before yours wordily went to see them. beaten to the 'punch', GMS will attempt to steer clear of pseud's corner in reviewing the final night at the roundhouse. i'll stick to facts, conjecture and nonsense.

• loud: mbv are louder than dinosaur jr and godspeed, but not as loud as atari teenage riot or machinehead. there.
  

• baggy dancing: fair play to the bez-style flailing-limbs pill-head dance-numpties, valiantly 'losing it' to walls of art-noise. they brought a note of levity and old-school 24-hour-party-people attitude to a crowd that was otherwise so intent on appreciating serious art as to stand still through a whole set by spectrum, a post-rock band so dull that even atp haven't booked them. i think.
  

• oo-wee-oo: for all their love of texture, counter-intuitive arrangements and a-rhythmic lurches, mbv gets the best response from the whale-song-guitar bits from loveless that go 'oo-wee-oo-wee-oo'. simple stuff. does this make mbv the ringtone rappers of the early-nineties shoegazing set?

• you made me realise: as everyone's sure to mention, mbv like to close their set with 'you made me realise', a disorienting, aggressive three-minute pop song with a twenty-minute interlude of unimpeded noise. it's hard to avoid pretension in attempting a serious description of something so pompous, wilful and silly. it's like watching an entire simpsons episode; except, instead of the simpsons, white noise. the nose rattles. breathing takes concentration. boredom and curiosity mingle, to no result. attention turns to the crowd, who are either uncomfortable, confused, angry or delirious. on reflection, it's a lot more like a beckett play than the simpsons. i'm not sure which tells you more about the human condition, though. i'll leave you with sam.

trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsgoodtheguardiansaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'feed me with your kiss' (peel session, 1988)]
trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsgoodpitchforksaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'you made me realise' (studio version, 1988)]
trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsdrownedinsoundsaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'you made me realise' (live in vancouver, 1992)]
[fin]