Guess what?

This was quite disappointing. They're not a terribly good live band. Still love the records, but wouldn't see them play again.

Interesting. I was wondering what you'd thought of ATP.

I didn't go! I thought we talked about this on the old board? Maybe not. I went to the MBV show last night instead of ATP (which was last weekend.) Since I had to fly there, this weekend worked out better time-wise.

Oh yeah, that is right. Must of spaced. Did anyone open?

Morning After Girls.

Zzzzzzzzzzz.

I love MBV. Loveless is just about my most-played album ever, and Isn’t Anything isn’t far behind. Love them, love them, love them. But I’m glad this piece points out the most unfortunate realization than an MBV superfan can come to – seeing them live is a miserable experience. For two reasons:

1. Aside from the drums and occasionally-almost-audible vocals, it’s nearly impossible to tell what, if anything, is actually being played live onstage. A lot of the music is clearly on loops, as it would have to be, but you can’t tell what is looped and what is live, or if anything is live. So you’re just staring at Shields for an hour and a half as he stands nearly motionless, seemingly just strumming continuous 8th notes on his guitar while a symphony of guitars playing all sorts of different rhythms somehow comes out of the speakers. It feels more like being in Kevin Shields’ company while MBV music plays than it does like watching him perform.

2. It’s just so, so, so unfathomably loud. No one goes to an MBV show expecting peace and quiet, of course, but it’s really just something else. Easily the loudest band I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Slayer a half dozen times), and possibly the loudest sustained sound I’ve ever heard, period. The problem with this is that MBV basically consists of three elements: a delicate balance of textures and nuances, a seemingly offhand knack for lovely melodies, and a wall of noise. In concert, the wall of noise is the only thing left, to the extent that it would often take me a minute or so to recognize what song the band was playing. At times this noise level is interesting in a purely experiential sense, but it transmutes almost nothing of what makes MBV such a great band.

And then there’s the closing “You Made Me Realize” noise jam, which lasts 15 minutes and kicks up the volume to such brain-melting levels that it almost becomes a physical presence in the room. I remember standing in the middle of the arena, professional grade earplugs in place, further covering my ears my hands, eventually crouching down on the floor as the noise went on. Everyone around me was pretty much doing the same thing, like standing in the middle of a sandstorm and refusing to take cover. A girl near me threw up toward the end, and she didn’t appear to be drunk. Once again, a pretty unique experience, but also a massively unpleasant one, and one completely removed from the pleasure that I associate with listening to the band.

Louder than Sunn?

This album seems to have dropped completely off the face of the earth. What happened?