After a sixteen year absence, MBV. return—only to remind one fan that another inhumane wait is eminent

It was the best news I received that entire weekend in April. Huddled among the sweaty, hipsterized masses at the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, I heard words I never thought I would be blessed enough to hear in my lifetime. Yes, the long-speculated rumor had finally been confirmed from the mouth of Paul Tollett—King Goldenvoice, himself.

My Bloody Valentine was returning to the States.

And so, my ex-boyfriend and I eagerly snapped up tickets for the final show of the tour—an early October stop in Santa Monica—and waited in agonizing anticipation for nearly six months, wondering what wonderful cacophony Mr. Kevin Shields and his band of merry noisemakers had in store for us.

It had, after all, been far too long since the world heard word from the immortalized shoegazing pioneers. The details of the sudden disappearance of My Bloody Valentine were shaky at best; a house full of chinchillas, Bilinda and Kevin’s ill-fated love affair, a record company driven to supposed debt—and at the root of it all, a reclusive, stubborn musical genius so fervently committed to creating art of the highest caliber, time held no clout against his work. (Even Hollywood could not create a story so bizarre, yet so amazingly affecting.)

What were MBV diehards to expect? Speculations flew about, but the best I could do was wait.

Then, it happened.

Front row center at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, I glanced around as the houselights dimmed. Was it really happening? All those effects pedals—did they really belong to Kevin Shields? Would Bilinda stand here, and Debbie over there? Was the band I was too young to know during their heyday actually going to take the stage in mere minutes?

I expected nothing; I did not want to disappoint myself with excessive optimism. (All I knew for certain, however, came in the form of a cryptic text message from a friend who attended the show the night before—“I can’t hear myself think. Wear earplugs.”)

The rest of the night—a sonic blur, complete sensory overload. Never in my entire life had I felt such a rush through the entire emotional spectrum. It seemed as if the band had picked up exactly where they left off sixteen years before—save the uncomfortable distance Bilinda and Kevin kept between one another; the significance behind Loveless, finally a palpable one.

I kept turning to my ex-boyfriend throughout the show. We shared the same looks of utter disbelief and joy. We seemed to simultaneously agree that this very concert, despite the countless shows we had seen before, would forever hold reign as the Best Live Show Ever Seen.

However, it was not until MBV’s famed extended noise epic, “You Made Me Realise” that reality settled in. As I crouched on the floor of the Civic attempting to hover beneath the earth-shattering one-chord wave of sound that reached well over eighteen minutes in length, I realized that it may be a horribly long time—or maybe never again—that I would relieve such an experience. I had my first taste of the sheer live power of My Bloody Valentine, and it became increasingly hard to accept that once the band finished “You Made Me Realise,” the night would be finished, and I would return back home, back to normalcy.

The thought of it all made me hopelessly and unbearably sad.

Kevin Shields recently told NME that he has plans to release two more albums of new My Bloody Valentine material. Given his track record for speedy production, though, I may be middle-aged, child-restrained, and on my way to full hearing loss by the time these projects come to fruition.

So please, Mr. Shields—hurry up. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait sixteen more years for another tour.

DOWNLOAD: My Bloody Valentine - “Paint A Rainbow”

Photograph by Joey Maloney