photo by me (18.02.13 Enmore Theatre, Sydney)
LOVELESS OR LIFELESS?
Entering through the doors of the Enmore Theatre on Monday night, l was very mindful to leave my negative thinking about My Bloody Valentine (MBV) at that doorway. Seemingly never finding an end to their praises, l was prepared to confront the beast, open to the prospect of maybe enjoying the performance, in fact that was my hope 'to finally get it' perhaps; l had paid $80 to see a band l didn't like (never have done this before) purely clinging on the blind faith that we might at last click. Having grown up heavily embraced by the Sydney live music community's fanatical interest in the band, what l've found progressively tiring was how so many bands l've known personally here in my home city have adopted their sound and championed them as an influence only to use the walls of static white wash to basically mask the fact no one has any great idea what they're playing or singing, or how to sing. This cop out has reached epidemic proportions and it was repeated on Monday night with perfect precision by the idol pieces of this lazy disease in music, however while l won't go so far as to say they didn't know what they were doing, it just seemed they didn't really care.
The theatre was packed of course, and having fought through the MBV legions l found an excellent position in the centre of the audience that also allowed me to clearly see the musicianship that was soon to follow. As soon as the show started and until the end some serious problems persisted; firstly, during a whole chunk of their material off Loveless, including 'When You Sleep' and 'Only Shallow' the two guitarists won't actually even playing the music!! Aside from samples or backing track that must have been doing all the work I noticed about two chord changes making up both those songs (l would say about three changes through out the entire concert) as well as the fact it was synth bars doing a lot of the melody and there were no synths on stage.
Now l know at this stage fans are going to tell me it's all about the pedals making the songs so hence they don't actually need to play but as a pedal fanatic myself (and fan of actual constructive and good use of noise) completely aware and understanding of what ground-level hardware the band use, this was not was guiding the songs to what we as an audience were hearing. Naturally the band used a lot of pedals yes but all this was used for from start to finish was to put up a largely monotonous wall of bland white noise that resembled little more than scraping metal, three chord changes over and over was the technical climax here. Admittedly at times when the sheets of turbulance were dismantled between songs there were a few nice moments of tremolo work on Shield's part but that was the interest tide point.
An uncomfortable thing about MBV on record, mainly on Loveless is the blandness and non-identity of the drum work. Without ever seeming to push beyond the skill set of a drummer's first week of lessons it always seemed to stick out horribly in the mix against the walls and walls of guitar work. it's as though the band had put so much time into crafting the guitars that they forgot to add in drums entirelly and at the last minute turned on a primitive drum preset, set it to tempo and seemingly thought 'Oh shit, the recordings are due tomorrow let's just slap this on' or the like. The live experience was no exception! Undoubtedly the musician behind the kit is surely a talented man to be sitting in on gigs of that notoriety but the poor guy must have the most boring nights of his life for at least 50% of the material played. The drummer was allowed a little more length on his leash as time passed and more free-flowing noise moments occured which l was personally grateful for as well as for the drummer's sake.
As i've heard over and over again from many a MBV zealot, each of the band's concerts also come with a titanic 10-15 minute avalanche of noise generally at some later stage in the production. We weren't deprived of this as a Sydney audience on Monday night, as one of the later tracks in the set speared off into their famous noise dive. This apparently spectacular display that l've been told by seasoned musicians even brings them to tears, was the blandest display of the night; one chord held and strummed, a mountain of effects naturally providing a wall of sound at extreme high volume, but that was it, that's actually all it was; in actual fact one chord strummed at a casual speed for as long as was needed until when? My wrist is sore, let's finish up? Which is what happened in the minutes afterward, the drummer got a bit of a work out though; good for him.
MBV had no rapport on stage with one another and aside from a single staunch 'Hi' to the audience from Shields at the beginning nothing else was said or gestured until the audience was again addressed with a courteous message that the last song they played would be the last for the evening. Having the venue lights brightened and the house music introduced the moment they laid their last dribble of noise to rest was a good way of keeping down any expectations of an encore, fans who had calmly waited twenty years since their last visit touring Loveless must have felt especially treasured.
Watching the audience during this cascade sequence, trying to simulate some kind of ecstatic state with their mouths hanging open, eyes closed and arms wobbling about made me feel especially disappointed for them. l couldn't help but scoff at their stupidity and their obvious willingness to believe the hype and identify with the antics of a lazy band as though it were the hand of God.
If l had seen the same band at a local pub playing their first show, l would have praised their interest in noise but would have equally bought up the same points, and if l saw them relying on samples to do the work despite their set up and technical capabilities on offer as a four-piece band, l would have doused them in what l was drinking even at their grass-roots level. An appalling, uninteresting performance by an unbelievably overrated band.
Yours truely,
Jim S
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