Apocryphally quoted to Sonic Boom as the ‘class of ’88 reunion,’ the concept of even one half of Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine ever being on stage together again was the stuff of auditory dreams and nightmares. But here they are, twenty years later, together at last in a converted cinema for what will be a memorable night of noise.
Although it starts fairly timidly. Spectrum and Sonic Boom have been keeping busy since Spacemen 3 acrimoniously and asexually divided into Spiritualised and Spectrum in 1991, but Sonic Boom’s work has been less… commercial than Jason Pierce’s work. On entering the auditorium, long extended chords and half-speed rhythms make it sound somewhere between a tune-up and a break-down. I guess it’s like beginning to watch a film halfway through – you’re not acclimatized to it. It doesn’t help that the stage is in near darkness though. A couple of crowd-pleasing Spacemen numbers are thrown in to keep the punters happy, before the set is wound up by the ten-minute drone of ‘Ecstacy’ . All a bit confusing and I’m feeling way to straight to get any of it.
Unusual though it may sound, My Bloody Valentine are a lot easier to get, though very unsettling. Bilinda and Debbie are unchanged (though Bilinda does look worryingly skeletal when the light catches her at a certain angle, and Debbie appears to be playing to a perspex reflection of herself – is this a bit Dorian Gray?) and Kevin Shields still has a Tom O’Bedlam mop of unruly curly hair. The set and sound are unchanged too: all classics, predominantly from Loveless, played at structural endangering volume that obliterates any hope of hearing the lyrics – Kevin and Bilinda mouth things while remaining stationary and the dynamic of noise changes slightly. Colm and Debbie rock their own realms of the low range. i realise this is all sounding by the numbers, but there is something quite comforting and intimate about the volume of music and the familiarity of ‘to here knows when’ and ‘soon,’ (‘only shallow’ doesn’t quite achieve is recorded punch, but i think this is more positioning than anything) and the visual displays of digital oil-wheels and clips from 70′s arthouse movies lend it an adolescent nostalgia for the majority of the crowd. It’s a time trip, and when the epic white noise of ‘You Made Me Realise’ kicks in, it goes all 2001. The noise is impenetrable, but the frequencies ride up and down your body like tiny fingers, vibrating the air in front of your face so your breathing the sound. Some may call it indulgent, but its the closest I’ve got to experiencing synysthesia. Then, it is all over and twenty years have passed. Curious that it feels like its only been a matter of seconds. Considering what I’ve heard tonight, I actually dread there being another album – the band would burst their temporal bubble and the whole thing would come falling about their ears. Best to claim the tinnitus as theirs and be happy with it.
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