As expected, everyone at the FYF fest was around the stage to see My Bloody Valentine on Sunday night, and despite the exhaustion of the end of the day – that was my 15th band – I was trying to get closer and closer to the stage. However, the crowd was overwhelming, so I decided to retreat further in the back. When My Bloody Valentine took the stage, I actually didn’t regret to be that far away! The crowd may have been overwhelming, but it was nothing compared to that monster coming from the band’s instruments. I wasn’t able to see clearly who or what was on stage, was this sound even generated by something human?
For a little while, I was even happy to be this far in the back, thinking that these crazy front-rows people were experiencing hell loudness, especially if they had forgotten their earplugs, and would probably leave the fest with permanent ear damage. On stage, the band sounded impassible, saying some rare and polite ‘thank you’, and nothing else. These shoegazers didn’t seem to move a bit, just generating this crushing, shattering, ear-bleeding, tinnitus-inducing sound and I didn’t get it at first. The music sounded drenched in distortion and oscillating reverb, and the vague vocals seemed to evaporate in the loudness. I wasn’t familiar with them, but listening to a few tracks online hadn’t prepared me at all for this live show… I couldn’t see much, but I was wondering whether they had brought a roaring monster engine or a jet plane on stage
For the first part of the show, all I was listening to was the horrific power of sound, not the music itself,… and I have been front row at a Motörhead concert. But MBV’s sound was more strident, more voluminous, rumbling like a bulldozer, and I would not have been surprised if people could have heard it downtown Los Angeles, a few miles away. Now I was getting why they had given away free earplugs at the entrance of the FYF fest, and recommended to put them on before the show.
Then, I saw people, lots of people leaving the place, may be they wanted to catch another act, very probably they couldn’t stand this distorted monster anymore, they were leaving the scene looking nauseous and unhappy. Poor hipsters, they were probably disappointed, they had to give up on the highly anticipated come back of year, MBV, the headliner of the FYF fest which had just released its first studio album in 12 years!
In a crazy move, I got closer to the stage as suddenly there was some free space in front of me. I got closer and closer, I never got too close as the crowd was still impressive, but at least I could see Kevin Shields and his bandmates on stage. He looked calm and stoic, the hyper distortion was still powerful and was absorbing my whole body, making the whole experience more physical than just plain sonic. Then in the middle of a song, the sound disappeared for a few seconds, it was a total silence, then the music came back just like that… Shields noticed it after playing the song, but continued anyway. Unfortunately, it was just the beginning of a series of technical difficulties and glitches… I guess they blew up the sound system, I don’t see another explanation! With the same passive and calm attitude they continued playing, doing a few false starts, even taking a break for a few minutes because of ‘technical problems’, and just announcing their last song a few minutes in advance on the schedule.
I didn’t care, these accidents give its authenticity to a live performance, and curiously, I was getting more and more into their passive violence, shoegazing aggression, and mind-blowing sound, I just had to let it go, it was actually liberating and plain fantastic… I don’t know what they played, probably more or less the same set that they have played during their last series of concerts, heavy on ‘Loveless’, but overall a mix of songs off their three albums ‘Isn’t Anything’, ‘Loveless’ and ‘m b v’. But what mattered most was their almighty-pedal-heavy-smashing sound, all the songs sounded earth-shattering and I was finally liking what I was hearing, if I can still use that word,… Last night, I couldn’t have cared less if I was deaf the next day, the experience was too good to flee the stage, these endless hurricanes of guitars were transforming the landscape, stopping everyone’s breath and rearranging brain synapses. I left the FYF fest just after their performance, thinking we had just witnessed something going way beyond music.
