It’s strange to think that the last time MBV played a full live show I was in my final year of primary school; suffice to say that after sixteen years then, expectations were high but at the same time nobody was entirely sure what to expect. As it stands, we have yet to hear any new material so all that we have to comfort ourselves with is that the new record is, in the band’s own words, “three quarters finished” and that the recent performances held so far in London, Manchester and, later this week, Glasgow, are providing them with a bit of extra motivation to get it completed.
The move back into the rigours of playing live and facing their fans once again seems to be taken in a somewhat tentative fashion judging by the timid and restrained on-stage presence that helped cement the ‘shoegaze’ title that their music is supposed to be categorized under. The support act for the evening, Spectrum, proved to be a well chosen warm-up outfit for the occasion, however: their ambient post-rock atmospherics (not dissimilar to Spiritualised, a band that was spawned from Spaceman 3 as Spectrum were) set the mood perfectly; and perhaps promises a comeback for Peter Kember too. The main event of the night was of course MBV’s comeback, which proved to be quite an experience.
I’m not entirely sure what the four of them have been doing for the past sixteen or so years (Kevin has worked with Primal Scream for a while and was coaxed into writing the soundtrack for Lost in Translation, but that’s as far as common knowledge goes) but the end result is similar to cryogenic storage in a time capsule: they sound, and as far as I can tell look, almost exactly as they did the last time they performed together. Time has been kind to Belinda, Colm, Debbie and Kevin but fortunately it’s been kind to the music as well. There were no surprises in terms of content – that is to say, we’re still waiting on that new LP – but in terms of recreating old favourites at painfully high volume it’s as if they never went away.
Kicking off the proceedings with I Only Said and When You Sleep, the set was a Best Of-style assortment from their two full LPs, Isn’t Anything and Loveless, plus one or two from their earlier EPs (I’m guessing those were the numbers I didn’t recognise). The earlier songs carried that chaotic, feedback-laden noise-rock but perhaps surprisingly the later ones came across just as well in the live setting; no mean feat given that album-orientated music recorded under long and complex production sessions isn’t always easy to recreate afterwards.
A projector screen and light show, featuring looped videos of geometric patterns, film footage of leafy glades and, in one particularly outstanding song that’s presumably an EP track, pictures of crowds and a blurry figure running down a corridor and falling through space, enhanced a visual experience that had Colm and Debbie in a surprisingly animated state but Belinda and Kevin standing either side, considerably more restrained. My main criticism here, which was probably intentional, was that their vocals were buried so far down in the mix that on occasion it was only when the silhoutted figures were seen leaning towards the mics that you were sure they were singing at all. On record the vocals sit alongside the instrumentation rather than ride on top of them of course, but I was still yearning to discern the words themselves as opposed to just hearing harmonies battling the wall of sound.
It was still quite something to hear the likes of the sublime Blow a Wish, Come In Alone and (for me the personal highlight) To Here Knows When though: they sounded every bit as ethereal and otherwordly as they do on record, indistinct vocals and all; only much, much, louder. I’m sure the anecdotes of venue staff distributing ear plugs at the door is familiar to many but I can assure you this was no publicity stunt: hearing protection is practically essential to appreciate the tunefulness beneath the layers of distorted noise and I daresay making then available is also a legal requirement. My plugs went in partway through the first song because this was, without exception, the loudest live concert I have ever attended.
You don’t just hear MBV play live; you feel it. As time went on, especially the likes of Feed Me With You Kiss (introduced with a shy “Hi!” from Kevin, practically the only act of audience interaction of the set), Suisfine and You Made Me Realise became gradually louder and louder. The latter, the closing song of the set, even included the now-infamous extended middle eight section that consists of several minutes of tuneless…noise. Repeated warnings, other reviews and even mp3 samples were unable to prepare me for the strangeness of this experience: the riffs die away, the band keep playing but instead of another verse, a rising swell of static rumbling blasts from the speakers and continues, in this case for a full thirty-five minutes, until the final chorus and their departure from the stage.
This noise-fest shitstorm, that I can only describe as a jet plane taking off with an earthquake going on in the background, is compelling, bizarre and disorientating: even though the light show continues you lose all sense of time and the only sensation is that of your clothing, limbs and stomach contents resonating; it’s sensory deprivation and sensory overload at the same time. After a selection of songs that, with proper hearing protection, sound very tuneful and even soothing on occasion, this experimental test of courage on the part of the band is a startling and shellshock-inducing way to end the performance.
The set as a whole was still a memorable experience as a music fan, even though the likes of my personal faves Sometimes and Loomer were absent: from the dreamy swirl of To Here Knows When, through the buoyant beat of Soon to the borderline-punk of Nothing Much To Lose and When You Wake You’re Still In a Dream MBV ably demonstrated why they’re so influential; it remains to be seen when and how they pick up where they left off and build on this enviable back catalogue. I was rendered speechless, my ears rang like hell for hours afterwards but I cannot wait to see them finally follow on from this. One thing is for sure, however: I could never forget this experience even if I wanted to.
Set List
- I Only Said
- When You Sleep
- (When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream
- You Never Should
- Cigarette In Your Bed
- Come In Alone
- Only Shallow
- Thorn
- Nothing Much To Lose
- To Here Knows When
- Blown A Wish
- Slow
- Soon
- Feed Me With Your Kiss
- Sueisfine
- You Made Me Realise
