My Bloody Valentine vs Ears
i am enjoying the quiet coming through my window this morning along with a little light fall wind, and trying to work through a speedy ear recovery from the aural abuse i took last night at the my bloody valentine show at roseland ballroom. having never been to one of their concerts, and apparently being an unsuspecting and naive, though solid fan, i wasn't prepared for it. well, i had earplugs, so in that way i was prepared, but i wasn't mentally prepared.
we stood through two relatively uninteresting opening bands, though j. mascis did make a stage appearance toward the end of the set of the second opener, and man that guy has some nice hair. we kept thinking, wow, we are in nyc, my bloody valentine could get anyone to open their set, we were hoping for our other favorites i think.
anyways, mbv delivered right away with loveless hits. beautiful, ecstatic, nostalgic, all the things one could ever want from a mbv show. by the third song, i felt ear damage. i looked around at the people around me and saw that they were all wearing earplugs already. mbv on earplugs felt like a really woozy, tranquilizer experience. maybe fun 10 years ago, but just annoying now. so the earplugs went in and out, based on what i wanted to hear vs how much ear damage i wanted to inflict. the strobe lights had my head down and eyes covered most of the time. unfortunate, because kevin shields was a nice thing to look at, as was belinda butcher.
a guy behind us had a seizure of some sort and had to be taken out, stiff as a board and eyes big and glassy.
the assault continued beautifully, and peaked with the 20+ minute head and heart crushing feedback fest that felt something like death by sound. knowing that they were going to do that at the end of the set, i wanted to get out of there about 2 minutes in. i sort of ran around the venue - to the bar, to the basement, around the sides, hoping to make it get quieter. no such luck. i finally left the building when i felt my chest and my heart seemed to be undulating weirdly under my ribcage.
holy jesus.
it took me a good hour to calm down. subway ride. a walk from the d train. in bed at 1 am my ears were pulsating. i was thinking about how crazy it is that you can hurt people with sound. sure its a well-known torture tactic, but i wasn't prepared for it indie rock style. i felt like i had been abused. an expensive, kind of beautiful abuse.
tonight is the low show at union hall's new venue on 3rd ave. i'll be screaming for more noise.
enjoy the beautiful, fall day.
-mama jens
we stood through two relatively uninteresting opening bands, though j. mascis did make a stage appearance toward the end of the set of the second opener, and man that guy has some nice hair. we kept thinking, wow, we are in nyc, my bloody valentine could get anyone to open their set, we were hoping for our other favorites i think.
anyways, mbv delivered right away with loveless hits. beautiful, ecstatic, nostalgic, all the things one could ever want from a mbv show. by the third song, i felt ear damage. i looked around at the people around me and saw that they were all wearing earplugs already. mbv on earplugs felt like a really woozy, tranquilizer experience. maybe fun 10 years ago, but just annoying now. so the earplugs went in and out, based on what i wanted to hear vs how much ear damage i wanted to inflict. the strobe lights had my head down and eyes covered most of the time. unfortunate, because kevin shields was a nice thing to look at, as was belinda butcher.
a guy behind us had a seizure of some sort and had to be taken out, stiff as a board and eyes big and glassy.
the assault continued beautifully, and peaked with the 20+ minute head and heart crushing feedback fest that felt something like death by sound. knowing that they were going to do that at the end of the set, i wanted to get out of there about 2 minutes in. i sort of ran around the venue - to the bar, to the basement, around the sides, hoping to make it get quieter. no such luck. i finally left the building when i felt my chest and my heart seemed to be undulating weirdly under my ribcage.
holy jesus.
it took me a good hour to calm down. subway ride. a walk from the d train. in bed at 1 am my ears were pulsating. i was thinking about how crazy it is that you can hurt people with sound. sure its a well-known torture tactic, but i wasn't prepared for it indie rock style. i felt like i had been abused. an expensive, kind of beautiful abuse.
tonight is the low show at union hall's new venue on 3rd ave. i'll be screaming for more noise.
enjoy the beautiful, fall day.
-mama jens
posted by mama jens at 4:18 PM
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