my bloody valentine | birmingham | 1988

a monsterous f*cking cacophony.
that's what it was.
playing stuff from isn't anything AND playing "you made me realise".

i don't remember the other bands on the bill (though i have a vague recollection that primal scream were playing).

i never bought any MBV records.
i didn't think much of them.
my girlfriend adored them and had everything - that rubbish german release included.
but i admit that for the 30 or so minutes that they were onstage they blew me away.

it wasn't just the volume.
it was belinda's seeming fragility staring out across the audience and kevin shields' mighty fender jaguar (was it a jaguar?) made an unholy screaming mess.

there didn't seem to be any security that night and so i wandered backstage afterwards and i had a chat with kevin shields.
he seemed like a nice bloke though i remember little of the conversation except for (and this is why i vaguely remember primal scream playing) telling me, as bobby gillespie sauntered past, "ignore bobby. he's pretending to be a smackhead".