I like My Bloody Valentine as much as the next guy …
.. but if you read the coverage of its ATP show carefully, it appears that Kevin Shields didn’t play a single new song.
(Stereogum coverage here. Cool pix from the show on Pitchfork here. NYT review and Pareles interview with Shields here.)
Loveless came out in 1991, if memory serves. MBV’s two proper albums remain compelling, and their shows were sui generis: Besides the sonic textures and fierce attack, the volume level was indeed uniquely loud. It was so loud that, as you looked over the crowd and saw skin pushed back on the faces of the audience by the successive buffets of aural shock, it almost became silent.
All that said, it’s 17 years later, and Shields hasn’t been able to get his act together to rehearse a single new song, not even for a hepster festival he was the main draw for.
It reminds us that, in this time of alternative-era reunion tours (of which the Pixies and now MBV have been most celebrated), you really can’t compare these bands to the broken-down ’60s stars whose decrepitude fueled the original punk movement.
You can’t compare them because they are worse. You can’t blame the bands; Shields, for example, recorded the equivalent of two and a half albums two decades ago but still, according to Hitsville’s First Law of Reunion Tours, the amount of money he takes in this year could be as much as he’s made in his entire career up to this point. But how about the press: Has any journalist yet made the obvious point that this is a nostalgia trip, nothing more?
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As someone who was still a toddler when Loveless came out, I would kill to see MBV, nostalgia show, or not.
Apparently the new stuff they are working on originates in their mid-nineties sessions, and is still being worked on. Isn’t it possible Shield’s is just trying to get everything right before playing anything new? As soon as they play anything new it is going to be heavily scrutinized, especially since Shields is known for being extremely meticulous.
(It’s obvious, but I REALLY want to believe MBV is still artistically relevant)
Chinese Democracy, indeed.
Not to toot my own horn, but when I wrote about the forthcoming MBV Chicago show in our news column (Illinois Entertainer), I commented that a new album would be much more valuable than a tour - not just because MBV are playing Chicago’s Aragon this weekend (I’m going), which is notorious for its muddy acoustics. Hardly the ideal venue, but will surely net Shields the most change for his pocket. Nick Cave, in town for Sunday and Monday shows, should be in attendance.
yeah but mbv did not trainwreck on the 1st song as the pixies did last tour!