I just came back from the Sunday 29th date at the Manchester Apollo (setlist anyone?). Superior city, superior music.
It was the loudest live event I've ever attended, and it hadn't even sold out!
My favourite live renditions were 'Cigarette In Your Bed', 'Slow', 'Soon', 'Nothing Much to Lose', 'You Never Should' and and set closer 'You Made Me Realize' although they were all brilliant.
Before the closing of 'You Made Me Realize' there was a (we timed it) half-hour outro of the aforementioned NOISE.
I have alot to say about this gig. Kevin Shields knew exactly what he was doing. It was either a tribute to the Metal Machine Music and ambient noise of Merzbow, or they were seeing how far they could push the stupid indie hipsters before they would leave. At one point I thought they would keep going until someone shut the power off and started to imagine a kind of aggressive edge to the proceedings... but they blasted back into the song eventually; this was virtually unrecognizable with the levels of volume and distortion that had gradually been rising throughout the cacophony.
We witnessed two people fainting... also the band not only looked EXACTLY the same as they did in 1991, they barely moved a muscle.
I always thought MBV's drummer was **** but live he was like some kind of shoegaze Gonzo, brilliant to watch. I was really looking forward to seeing how they would pull off alot of the more obscure samples and sounds featured on 'Loveless' but these just came squawking from somewhere off stage, loud as ya like.
Oh, and the visuals were everything you would expect after 17 years!
Any forum members who haven't booked tickets for one of the US dats should do so with all possible haste...
Apparently the albums are getting the 'deluxe edition' treatment; let's just hope Kevin doesn't decide to release any new material and maybe lift the veil of mystique?? What do other people think about the future of MBV?
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