You Made Me Realise

The My Bloody Valentine show was this past Saturday in Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom. It was a phenomenal sensory overload. After some pre-show do-goodery, as in attending an all you can drink fundraiser with my main squeeze where we consumed ten vodka drinks in less than an hour (hey it was for underprivileged South East Asian children), we headed over to the Aragon. The venue, while beautiful in kind of a gaudy oldey timey way, has often let me down in terms of its acoustics and general sound quality. I guess that MBV has some top notch sound engineers (and probably because guitarist Kevin Shields is an uber perfectionist) because from note one the sound was incredible, and not just because it was loud, which it indeed was. The security handed out earplugs compliments of the band, but I resisted their use until the very end. I wanted my ears to experience and unfiltered version of the band that has been with me through my awkward years (which some can say are still going on). They deserved that respect from me.

Is it wrong that I cried when they played "When You Sleep"? Because I did and it was only the second song (my shoegazer cred upped a notch). I rocked out like a crazy hyena during the whole show. Gracing those around me with my fist pumps, diamonds in the sky, shimmying, and incredibly loud clapping (perfected through intense pee wee football cheerleading). We were pretty far back from the stage which was fine with me because a) I didn't have to wear earplugs b) I could see the whole light show and visuals and c)It gave me room for aforementioned shimmying. A guy standing by us said he was impressed that I was so into the show and all I could think was ummm, duh everyone should be so into it, they haven't played for 16 years people! But, that reaction wasn't the case and I would have to say the lowlight of the show was that people were just standing there and didn't seem too enthused. People even left early. EARLY and during an almost 20 minute long rendition of "You Made Me Realise":



Granted, it was feedback heavy, but it was brilliant and noisy and beautiful. I was short of breath after the show and my heart was full.