Watch My Bloody Valentine Perform For The First Time In 5 Years
My Bloody Valentine fans are accustomed to long waits. The shoegaze legends are, after all, one of those groups that took more than 20 years between albums. If you happened to miss them back in 2013, when they were touring their long-awaited comeback m b v, it’s been half a decade without another chance to see them concoct their particular brand of beautifully punishing noise onstage. But MBV are finally hitting the road again this year amidst promises of two forthcoming EPs. Which, you know, we’ll see about the whole new music part, but as of this weekend you at least definitely have the opportunity to see the band play once more.
Last night at Birmingham’s O2 Institute, My Bloody Valentine played their first show in five years. It was more of a warm-up gig ahead of a big show in London tonight, but fans who made it reported the sort of MBV return we’ve been primed to expect. This band is infamously extremely, extremely loud — like, shake the entire room and force uncontrollable bodily reactions and inflict permanent hearing damage kind of loud. The videos from the Birmingham performance suggest that five years have done nothing to dull MBV’s horrifying and/or wondrous power.
As for the setlist, you’d be let down if you were crossing your fingers for any new material. But it’s hard to quibble with it otherwise, given the band put together a series of songs from across their career. The titanic Loveless highlights like “Only Shallow,” “I Only Said,” and “Soon” were all there; the cooing m b v standout “New You” and their catastrophic closer “You Made Me Realise” were, too. The unnerving airstrikes of “In Another Way” probably would’ve fit in well here, but, hey, MBV are back and still able to raise their customarily unholy storm of distortion. You should catch them if you get the chance. Until then, check out some videos and the full setlist below.
SETLIST:
“I Only Said”
“When You Sleep”
“New You”
“You Never Should”
“Honey Power”
“Cigarette In Your Bed”
“Only Tomorrow”
“Only Shallow”
“Who Sees You”
“To Here Knows When”
“Slow”
“Soon”
“Wonder 2″
“Feed Me With Your Kiss”
“You Made Me Realise”