MBV @ The Aragon Ballroom, Chicago. 9/27/2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
I don't go to too many concerts, but the legendary My Bloody Valentine was on my must list. I went with my whole gang of Chicago indie-rock friends including Jimmy and Jane from Essenza and my ever-present business partner, Giaxia. Complete sound-and-light sensory overload from start to finish. Shoegaze bliss, just what you would expect. Not recommended for epileptics. All this and I was up in the balcony. Just think if you were on the floor (it was too hot).
The tight hour-and-fifteen-minute-long show (we skipped the opening band; I heard they sucked) highlighted all their stuff, basically the "Isn't Anything" and "You Made Me Realise" EPs, and "Loveless". High point of the show was a complete, 25 minute-long white noise wall of sound freakout in the middle of "Cigarettes in Your Bed." A lot of people left during it, it was so abrasive. It went on seemingly forever, but when they finally went back into the song for the big finale, your patience was rewarded. There was no encore.
MBV's triumphant, sold-out return (3000+ people at the Aragon) basically underlines the fact that modern music ain't shit or else so many people wouldn't have turned out for a band that only made one full album way back in 1991. As if the returns of old heads like the Pixies, the Police and others didn't already belabor the point. I find my iPod kind of stops around 2001 at the latest. I haven't really liked much this decade to be honest. The only newer stuff I've got is TV on the Radio, BRMC, and Interpol.
Crowd was to super-cool to watch. Lots of old-school alternative heads from the late '80s (including me =P) were there with their Jesus and Mary Chain and Joy Division t-shirts, and what looked like every single record store clerk in Chicago! A lot of what can only be called indie-rock cougars were there too (think Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth, who's like 50-ish and still hot in a ragged rock-chick sort of way; like that). Lots of cute Wicker Park-looking hipster girls, and at least one full-on transvestite! I saw many people there I knew (including my downstairs neighbor!), which surprised me. I didn't think I knew that many people here. I guess I really am a Chicagoan now.
Night was capped off by dinner at Cleo's. Lots of fun was had by all!
Now if only Medicine would get back together and tour. Just the first three albums worth of stuff. That would be the shit.
Does me liking shoegaze and indie rock make me less Detroit Techno? LOL. And just think, I used to be in Underground Resistance.
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