My Bloody Valentine 20/6/08

This was a double first - unsurprisingly the first time for seeing MBV as they had stopped performing live many years before I got into them but surprisingly the first time I had been to the iconic Roundhouse. The free earplugs would have given away that it was likely to be very loud even if I hadn't been pre-warned and those who eschewed the earplugs regretted it later particularly during the encore consisting of twenty minutes of extreme noise (aka 'You Made Me Realise'. It was an extraordinary gig pretty much all played at volume 11 except for 'You Made Me realise' which was at 12 at least. They played most of 'loveless' and much of 'Isn't Anything' and so they covered all my favourites including 'when you sleep' and 'i only said'. To hear these tracks performed live was a privilege and a joy but I also enjoyed the fact that this gig was different to anything I had seen before. Distortion and volume taken to the max and delivered as incredible music from another world. The finale was even a further step into the extreme and the single chord that was played after twenty minutes of being next to a jet engine was sweet indeed. By that time I think those without earplugs had in general left in order to preserve their hearing. For me - I liked every last second of it.