10 things we learned from My Bloody Valentine’s awesome Wembley Arena show

1 MBV are an arena band now
Evidently the legend is such that 40 years into a mercurial career, My Bloody Valentine are capable of filling arenas. But are arenas necessarily the best place for this most chimerical of bands and their demand for obliterating volume? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’: the awesome sound emanating from Wembley Arena’s six-storey speaker stacks was more physical than ear-bleeding, buffeting you like a storm, enveloping you like a fog, engulfing you like a sea.

2 J Mascis can do it without the fuzz
Before the main event, we were treated to a terrific support set by the Valentines’ old Rollercoaster touring buddy J Mascis. No respecter of decibel limits himself, Mascis here played against type as an avuncular solo troubadour, proving that his Dinosaur Jr songs are about more than just brute force and squealing solos; an acoustic, echo-laden “Out There” was a particular treat.

3 Kevin Shields has a new hat
Yes, Shields has taken to wearing a large black hat that makes him look like he’s about to drown some witches. Otherwise the scene was familiar from MBV tours past: Shields swaying gently in front of his higgledy-piggledy wall of amplifiers; Bilinda Butcher glittering impassively on the other side of the stage, just in front of keyboardist and auxiliary guitarist Jen Macro; while all the visible action happened in between, courtesy of Colm Ó Cíosóig’s superhuman drum fills and the relentless pummelling of Deb Googe’s bass guitar, held, as always, as if she’s firing a bazooka directly into Ó Cíosóig’s face. Which, incidentally, is pretty much what the main riff of “Feed Me With Your Kiss” felt like.

4 The disorientating visuals were a perfect complement to the music
The relative stasis of the band was compensated for by a cosmic scree of strobe lights and psychedelic projections, an amniotic ooze of pinks, reds and purples sloshing constantly across the stage. Much like the music, it was at once both comforting and overwhelming.

5 The vocals were more prominent in the mix
Whether an aesthetic decision or simply a welcome function of the upgraded sound-system, Butcher’s vocals were more discernible than ever before, lending a welcome fragility to the likes of “Honey Power”. Harmonising on “Come In Alone”, Butcher and Shields could have been singing an old English folk song, were it not for the swirling vortex of noise.

6 Cues were occasionally fluffed – but that only underlined the rawness of the performance
The band were forced to restart “New You” twice – “it’s the age thing,” muttered Shields – but these hiccups served as a reminder that this arena show was very much not on-rails. From the glorious opening salvo of “I Only Said” and “When You Sleep”, this felt like a particularly raw, exposed performance, with every snare hit carrying an emotional charge. The rarely played “Off Your Face” was breathtakingly lovely, precisely because it seemed constantly in danger of toppling over or blowing away.

7 This was no precision-tooled arena rock assault…
It’s hard to even know how to describe “To Here Knows When”, which was enormously moving while also sounding like it was being played from inside a glacier. It underlined the fact that these songs certainly weren’t designed with typical rock dynamics in mind – they’re basically gooey love songs that got out of hand.

8 …Although there were a few exceptions
The queasy wormhole drum’n’bass of “Wonder 2” felt like a deliberate attempt to muddle your molecules. And the notorious breakdown of “You Made Me Realise”, your head in the jet engine, was more obliterating and yet more euphoric than ever, lasting approximately six minutes. When they finally brought the riff back, in time with the satanic throb of the noise breakdown, it was more than the human brain can comprehend.

9 The scene continues to celebrate itself
Shoegazers have always been a supportive bunch, and it was good to see London’s gazerati out in force. As YouTube will tell you, Lush’s Miki Berenyi has been down the front since day one, and she certainly wasn’t going to miss this one…

10 No new material – no matter
The band’s disregard for release schedules has become a running joke, and the absence of new songs here suggests a follow-up to 2013’s MBV is far from imminent. But much like Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine don’t need to keep churning out new material to stay relevant, having long since surpassed such quotidian concerns. There really is nothing comparable to an MBV show – go and see them if you can, and have your mind blown all over again.

SET LIST
I Only Said
When You Sleep
New You
You Never Should
Honey Power
Cigarette In Your Bed
Only Tomorrow
Come in Alone
Only Shallow
Off Your Face
Thorn
Nothing Much To Lose
Who Sees You
To Here Knows When
Slow
Soon
Wonder 2
Feed Me With Your Kiss
You Made Me Realise