Almost Lost My Hearing Last Night At The NYC My Bloody Valentine Concert

I'd been bumming lately after a routine visit to the dermatologist turned into a scalpel sawing off the top layer of a new white mole located on the tip of my nose for a biopsy, cause it could be a local cancer. So the next day when my buddy Dan emailed and asked if I wanted his extra pass to the second night of the sold out My Bloody Valentine run at the Roseland Ballroom I said "F%@k it. I'll put a hat on and go." After all it was My Bloody Valentine, the shoegazers I fell in love with after drowning in 1991's Loveless, and the rockers had been defunct for over a decade, until they decided to get back into it this summer.

After failing to drink myself into a Belvedere-soda (with two limes, please) -induced coma, in an attempt to clear my mind of the crazy that is my life, it was show time. Afterall, we all know music is the best medicine. What I didn't know at that point was that we didn't have tickets, and we would be going all Led Zeppelin into the venue, all awhile passing a young looking Thurston Moore into the VIP section. (Guy looked young, like he was 25 and had a youthful bounce to him. I thought it might be the guy from Tokyo Police Club, but that dude had no business being behind the stage leaning on some gear minutes before MBV went on. And too think I almost put myself into a self-induced (with help from a bartender) coma.

"I hope you don't think I'm a square, but I brought ear plugs. I heard it was loud," Dan admitted. Luckily, he had an extra pair. I never thought that shoegaze music was loud, always thought of it as ambient…almost peaceful. Boy was I wrong. You can go deaf at a My Bloody Valentine show. The second MBV opened the show with "I Only Said" off Loveless, which sounded exactly like it does on the album, I was thankful for the ear plugs. It soon became apparent that it all might be a little too loud. At first I was pissed that the band would full stop between each track to tune and switch guitars and what not, but the pause provided some quiet time my ears appreciated. I mean, it was SO LOUD you couldn't even hear Kevin Shields' vocals …AT ALL...after that.

But the craziest part of the show had to be the 15 minute+ reverb/fuzzbox section during "You Made Me Realise." The band just stood around scratching their guitars and pumping their foot pedals. The noise was so loud I could feel my organs shaking inside my body. People in the audience lifted their arms in the air as if they were being resurrected or having out of body experiences. I had never been shook like that, nor have I been so entertained by a band playing basically the same chord for 20 minutes. My longstanding idea of shoegaze has changed forever.

9/23/08 My Bloody Valentine set list:

I Only Said
When You Sleep
You Never Should
(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream
Cigarette In Your Bed
Come In Alone
Only Shallow
Thorn
Nothing Much To Lose
To Here Knows When
Slow
Soon
Feed Me With Your Kiss
You Made Me Realise