My Ears Hurt... And I Had Plugs In

09/26/08 3:52pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

The "holocaust section" at the end of "You Made Me Realize," which My Bloody Valentine played to cap their set at Toronto's Kool Haus last night, was at least 23 minutes long.

"You Made Me Realize" is originally three minutes and 46 seconds long, but live, the band take the middle section and play the same chord over and over for as long as they see fit. This can last upwards of 20 minutes, which was the case last night. And man, was it ever fucking loud.

Kevin Shields was using 10 amplifiers (most of which were full Marshall stacks) last night, and there were almost 10 more split between Bilinda Butcher and Debbie Googe. The volume was just... I can't even explain it properly.

Basically, to give you somewhat of an idea of how loud it was, my earplugs were vibrating in my ears, and I'd jammed them pretty firmly in there. The floor was rumbling. Some people have said it sounded like a shuttle launching — exactly.

The clip above is only 31 seconds, so it doesn't properly demonstrate what was coming into the ears of everyone present. When I removed one of my plugs for a second to get an idea of just how truly loud it was, I experienced some pretty intense shooting pain in my ear, and this was only for a split second. I don't know how you could endure the set — let alone more than 20 minutes of some of the loudest noise I've ever heard — without plugs.

Afterwards, when the band left the stage, the feedback from their instruments was ridiculous. Googe's bass started making a "wonk wonk wonk wonk" noise that hurt my ears, shook the building and made myself and others around me start yelling when we had our plugs in.

I can't really describe the experience properly, though. If you were there, you know what it was like. I knew full well what I was getting into, but I don't ever want to experience something of that intensity again, thanks.

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