The group’s first gig in nearly a decade was a secret Dublin show billed to “Isn’t Anything.” The shoegazers will play in the Fair City again this weekend
After a seven-year intermission, My Bloody Valentine returned to the stage Wednesday night at a not-so-secret Dublin concert, since anyone could guess the identity of a band calling itself Isn’t Anything. The band is set to perform under its own name on Saturday at the Fair City’s 3Arena. It will be the group’s first time headlining a gig in its hometown under its own name since 1992.
On Wednesday, the band stuck to its noisy comfort zone, playing a set list that drew heavily from its three full-lengths, Isn’t Anything (1988), Loveless (1991), and m b v (2013). Fans hopeful for new material left unrewarded. The one surprise was a performance of “Off Your Face,” the doleful deep cut that closes the group’s 1990 EP Glider that the band supposedly had never previously played live. A photo of a set list circulating online lists two m b v songs that went unperformed: “Who Sees You” and “Wonder 2.”
Video of the band playing Loveless’ “Soon” shows a typically psychedelic scene, as lights and sounds swirl around Kevin Shields’ voice. Ditto “Come in Alone.” (Perhaps the most notable thing is just how collected and quiet the audience is, waiting for the music.)
In 2017, Shields told Rolling Stone how special it was for him to create what he considered to be the perfect vinyl editions of Isn’t Anything and Loveless. “The exciting part is that a lot of the guitars, hearing them just in the album opening, they’re what I kind of thought they were when I was doing it,” he said. “The sheer riffiness of that sound on the analog, without anything in the way, is quite special.”
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In the same interview, he also teased new music the group was working on at the time. “The m b v album that we did in 2013 feels more meandery and not as concise,” he said, comparing it to what he was writing at the time. “This one is like if somebody took that and dropped some acid on it or created a dimensional clash or something. It’s more all over the place.”
Time will tell when the band starts playing new songs. The band has dates scheduled in the U.K. this year and Japan and Spain, for the Primavera Sound festival, next year.