- After My Bloody Valentine phoned in an underwhelming performance at Fuji Rock last summer, fans of the band could be excused for seeing this concert—a somewhat hastily arranged date, billed as a "new tracks" showcase—with an air of skepticism. Instead, the dominant feeling was one of excitement, mostly thanks to the involvement of Dommune, who made their first foray into the live concert market with this gig. Naohiro Ukawa, founder of the renowned streaming website, had promised a mammoth 128dB of sound on a special 240V rig.
Support act Sotaisei Riron did little to indicate that there would be any need for the complimentary earplugs, but Kevin Shields and co did not take long to correct that impression. The shoegazers opened with the familiar chords of crowd-pleaser "Sometimes," a rare outing for a song normally absent from their set lists, but a fitting inclusion given its prominence in the ode to Tokyo that was Lost In Translation. The band had the entire festival season to work on their performance, and they confidently powered through a slew of old favourites from Loveless, including "Soon," "Only Shallow" and "To Here Knows When," as well as "Feed Me With Your Kiss" (from Isn't Anything) and EP tracks like "Cigarette In Your Bed" and "Honey Power." A smorgasbord of amps and preamps in various shapes, colours and sizes created a backdrop that was even more interesting than the minimalist visuals projected behind the band.
My Bloody Valentine barely put a foot wrong, but the star of the show was undoubtedly the much-anticipated soundsystem. The relative subtlety of their signature undulations of reverb and distortion demands a rig that is not simply loud but also full of clarity. The guitars growled and shrieked throughout, but it was Bilinda Butcher's hypnagogic vocals and Colm Ó Cíosóig's frenetic drums that gained the most from the exceptional sound.
If there was one disappointment on the night, it was that this "new tracks" showcase hardly drew from this year's m b v, with only "Who Sees You," "Wonder 2" and "Only Tomorrow" making it into the set list. Of course, by the time the band pushed the system to its absolute limit with the infamous "holocaust" section of their set-closer "You Made Me Realise"—a lengthy exercise in endurance that oscillated between the brutal and the sublime—that hardly seemed to matter.