By Kara Tucker
A testament its original construction and subsequent renovations, the Hammerstein Ballroom held together in a trip through space and time Monday.
That challenge was certainly not made easier by the return of My Bloody Valentine, making its first appearance in New York, since releasing “MBV”, the long (and I do mean long) awaited follow up to its classic “Loveless” album.
This was the same My Bloody Valentine who, on the Loveless tour, played loud enough to knock plaster off the walls of the Ritz, threatening to make the floors there whiter than they were during that building’s heyday as Studio 54.
A testament its original construction and subsequent renovations, the Hammerstein Ballroom held together in a trip through space and time Monday.
That challenge was certainly not made easier by the return of My Bloody Valentine, making its first appearance in New York, since releasing “MBV”, the long (and I do mean long) awaited follow up to its classic “Loveless” album.
This was the same My Bloody Valentine who, on the Loveless tour, played loud enough to knock plaster off the walls of the Ritz, threatening to make the floors there whiter than they were during that building’s heyday as Studio 54.
The band, which last played the city in 2008, clearly hasn’t lost any volume in the intervening 21 years. It’s safe to say they were testing the walls of the Hammerstein. That isn’t to say they were purely about loudness for loudness’ sake, even though those signs on at the entrance urging usage of ear plugs were not kidding.
The sound, either to build up to the climax or perhaps to puckishly lull folks into a false sense of ear security, began as “Pfft, it’s not that loud” before getting louder with each song. Before long, it moved to “Oh, crap, it is that loud” as one began to feel the music coming from the floors and into the chest.
Monday’s setlist played like a deluxe edition of that ’92 Ritz gig (when the band opened for Dinosaur Jr.). Not only were there a few more older songs, the band worked in four songs off “M.B.V.” an often stellar album, even if it plays like three separate E.P.s.
Those three facets all got an airing Monday – “Only Tomorrow” and “Who Sees You” from the first third of the album that plays like “Loveless 2”, “New You” when the band emerges from the swirling hypnotics into swooning territory not unlike a more organic Stereolab and “Wonder 2”, a rushing whir of ambient rhythm that closes the record.
All four songs fit seamlessly into the older material that dated back to the years 1988-1991.
The whole thing could be dismissed as loud for loud’s sake if not for some key factors.
For one, underneath it all, MBV has pop in its DNA. Even if the hooks are buried in the mix, under the tremolo and feedback and heavy ethereal sound, they’re there on record and they were there again live.
The band, with its same core lineup since ’87, is also not just throwing out noise, but exploring space within that volume, creating an experience that was immersive more than assaultive, no mean feat at those levels.
While 14 of the set’s 18 songs were at least 22 years old, the trip through time and space wasn’t straightforward. MBV’s always sounded like a band ahead of its time or rather, a band in a time of its own.
To be sure, there were bands influenced by them, there really weren’t any bands in their wake who sounded like them (unlike such other visionaries as, say, Velvet Underground).
For all its explorations, the show was pretty straight forward. One could fit the between-song banter on the back of a matchbook cover. Even if the band projected its own air of cool, this wasn’t a night about connecting with the audience as people, but rather through sound.
“Loveless” certainly didn’t get short-shrift with seven of its 11 tracks making an appearance. That’s no shock for an album that’s made all sorts of lists, including Rolling Stone’s top 500 of all-time, a legacy that daunted bandleader Kevin Shields, who reportedly scrapped multiple follow-ups and hit writer’s block because he felt none of it measured up to it.
The material from it was as brilliant as ever, with its swirling, feedback, reverse-reverbed guitars bringing its sound to the fore with additional power with Blinda Butchers soothing vocals sometimes reduced to a losing battle for space which made them seem only more ethereal.
The pre-Loveless material benefitted from the approach, as those early EPs, as good as they were, felt like blueprints for what the band would be up to later. They feel fleshed out live, enveloped by the guitars and embraced by the bottom end.
Indeed, for all of the results produced by Shields’ intensive studio tinkering, it’s the underrated rhythm section of bassist Deb Googe and drummer Colm O’Cloisig that allows those flights to take off.
The end result Monday was an immersive, tactile experience unlike much of anything else that’s out there. Feedback was made pretty. Quiet swoons cushioned of gnarled shards of heavy enough that one felt pummeled and caressed at the same time.
The show reached its apex perfectly down the stretch – “To Here Knows When” swooned transcendently, “Wonder 2”skittered hypnotically, “Soon” kept its heavy groove, “Feed Me With Your Kiss” burst with punkish energy.
That led up to the evening’s finish, and perennial MBV set closer, “You Made Me Realise.”
In its original recorded form, the song is propulsive psychedelia punctuated by passages of soaring chaos. Live, those passages take on a life of their own in the “holocaust section”, lasting for several minutes, pushing the song to 15, 20, even up to 30 minutes in some legendary instances.
Monday’s version was shorter, but didn’t sacrifice any power in the process. O’Cloisig bashed away on the drums, Googe pounded away, Shields working way more out of that one chord than anyone had a right to. This was the moment the maelstrom stopped playing around and swallowed the audience whole, an experience both disorienting and soothing.
It was the penultimate show of My Bloody Valentine’s touring this year and the last scheduled show for now.
“M.B.V.” was a better album than it had a right to be given its stops and starts and overtinkering. In fact, it was a damn good album, period that gave at least a sliver of hope that Shields’ talk of a follow-up E.P. and the band’s next album isn’t just talk.
Even if it exists in a universe mostly of its own, My Bloody Valentine is still an impressive force to be reckoned with and a vital entity that deserves to take off free from studio obsession more often. Here’s hoping Shields is revitalized and doesn’t consider 2013 some sort of victory lap.
Because My Bloody Valentine still has plenty of brilliance left in the tank and, besides, the walls at the Hammerstein aren’t going to just test themselves.
My Bloody Valentine Hammerstein Setlist
November 11, 2013
1. Sometimes
2. I Only Said
3. When You Sleep
4. New You
5. You Never Should
6. Honey Power
7. Cigarette In Your Bed
8. Only Tomorrow
9. Come In Alone
10. Only Shallow
11. Thorn
12. Nothing Much To Lose
13. Who Sees You
14. To Here Knows When
15. Wonder 2
16. Soon
17. Feed Me With Your Kiss
18. You Made Me Realise
