It’s been sixteen years. Sixteen years of having to make do with Mogwai and Sonic Youth, sixteen years since Kevin Shields joined the Howard Hughes Club for Misunderstood Recluses and sixteen years since the noisy end of avant-pop has been without its rightful leader.
Even the very act of appearing in front of an audience serves to dismantle some of the layers of myth surrounding the band. Singer and guitarist Bilinda Butcher looks angelic, Shields the same sloppy self of 1992 vintage. Searing through ‘Only Shallow’, the band confirm they have lost none of their remarkable power.
But tonight – the second in a string of sold-out comeback shows – is such a powerful and confrontational performance that it feels as if you are witnessing not a return but a new beginning. If their recorded output is full of sensuous, dream-like textures, the MBV live experience thrives on sheer sonic violence. Drummer Colm O’Ciosoig and bassist Debbie Googe provide the spine-crushing intensity, while Shields’s eight amplifiers and tower block of gadgetry ratchet up the volume. The sleepy vocals are mostly overwhelmed by the onslaught.
Steeped in hazy washes of noise, Loveless’ finest moments float by, though ‘Soon’ and ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’ stand out amid the drowsy throb. The band finish with traditional closer ‘You Made Me Realise’, descending into formless white noise after a few verses. What follows is a 20-minute aural assault that renders the provided earplugs as useful as a square peg faced with a round hole – Shields once called this the ‘Holocaust section’.
Fingers go into ears. Punters seem punch-drunk. It is an epic face-off between band and audience.
Googe leaps into the air and the song kicks back in again defiantly, collapsing into squeals as the band leaves the stage. No ‘thank yous’. No encores. Job done. About time.