My Bloody Valentine, October 1 at the Santa Monica Civic

I know earplugs aren't very rock n' roll. I've never worn them to a show, though there have been a few times when I wish I had remembered them during the opening band, so I could save my hearing for the headliner. I have proudly been deaf for days after some of my favorite shows. Like most young(er) people, I don't think of the long-term effects and assume I'll have my hearing for forever, no matter how many concerts I go to. But I knew that seeing My Bloody Valentine, perhaps the loudest band of the last 20 years, I should take some ear-plugs. Just in case. By the time I was getting into shoegaze in the 90s, My Bloody Valentine had pretty much already been and gone. But my life was changed once I got Loveless sometime after that. It's hard to get perspective on music in the time since MBV's advent made the world safe for artful guitar noise. What is beautifully shaped distortion and noise in the studio sounds fine on CD but it also sounds constrained and trapped, which is appealing but in a live setting is where the waves of distortion can really be free. The wide open space of the Indio Polo Fields would have been perfect but after MBV's embarrassing omission from 2008's Coachella line up, the next best place is a large venue that could withstand the volume of the band. I had a cheap pair of earplugs with me, only to find that, at the entrance to the venue, they were giving them out. Then when I got inside, I met up with a co-worker who also had some. The place was nice. I don't know how many concerts that the Santa Monica Civic hosts (though it got a mention in Slash's autobiography, that Guns n' Roses played one of their earliest shows there opening for Ted Nugent) but Bob Dylan had been there recently, it had open seating, like half a hockey-stadium and reminded me of the Long Beach Arena, bottled water for $1.50, and popcorn for $2. I don't know how much unreleased stuff that MBV played but I know they played most of Loveless so I was as content as I could possibly be. And, just like I thought it would be, that show was without-a-doubt, hands-down, unquestionably the loudest show I have ever been to. And you know by now that I've been to a lot of shows. I don't even know if it would have been quieter in an outside venue. My ears were ringing the next day even though I'd had my earplugs in. I took out my earplugs for one song at the beginning and my ears were ringing by the end of it. The drone-freak-out during the last song was a bit much, just hitting the same note for 20 minutes, but it's apparently a tradition at an MBV show. Apparently that just pounded home the point, if you didn't get it already, that at an MBV show, even more than gorgeous washes of sound and noise, the volume is the thing.
Something called Spectrum opened the show and they were not nearly loud enough so they were, therefore, completely insignificant.

My Bloody Valentine's set:*
"I Only Said"
"When You Sleep"
"You Never Should"
"(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream"
"Cigarette In Your Bed"
"Come In Alone"
"Only Shallow"
"Thorn"
"Nothing Much To Lose"
"To Here Knows When"
"Slow"
"Soon"
"Feed Me Your Kiss"
"You Made Me Realise"