Met up last night with a couple of friends, one came up from Tampa for the show and the other lives here in the city. I took the Lawrence bus to the Aragon and hoped to have a drink at The Green Mill before the show, but the line there was outside and no way were we waiting. We walked up Broadway and found another place and had a drink and did some catching up. Jonathan, Pete, and I discussed reviews of the show and the future of the band for about 20 mins, then headed over. As we walked into the Aragon, security guards were handing out earplugs saying "compliments of the band". We wanted to miss the first band after hearing from Jonathan's friend in Toronto that they sucked, and I did a Myspace on them and agreed. No sense wasting time on a bad band. To our luck they started right as we walked up the stairs. I had mix feelings about where I was standing. On one hand I would like to be closer to the band, but at the same time I knew how classic shoegazers are, watching the band is pretty much boring. The band made up for that with an outrageous light show. The way the were played almost could give anyone a seizure. Also videos were shot of patterns. Aside from all of that was the ongoing stories of how loud they were playing and I didn't care to have ringing ears for days afterwards.

Here's my honest review. You could say both that the show was phenomenal and boring depending on your take. Maybe if I was 20 years old and a newbie to the rock scene and was versed in what was cool from the late 80s/early 90s, and stood near the front, I might have been completely amazed (and deaf, but who cares at that age?). But for someone who has seen a share number of shoegazing bands in the late 80s and early 90s and missed them 16 years ago, I never felt too excited or that my entire rock history rested on this night. I didn't care if they sucked or rocked out. So for me, I give them about a 3/5. Since I stood near the very back of the Aragon and had strong earplugs in, the noise level wasn't band, but I could tell they were living up to their decibal stories. What was a letdown were probably four things: 1) too loud, 2) Aragon isn't the best place for sound (not MBVs fault), 3) they played the songs exactly like their studio versions, 4) the 30-minute noise (aka 'The Holocaust') ending for 'You Made Me Realise'. As I knew about the ending, we left when it kicked in. I'm a fan of noise to a certain degree, but this sounded like a jet engine roaring at takeoff (I f'n kid you not). [this guy captured a few seconds of it from the show]

What I did enjoy were hearing the tracks that I like of the studio versions -- 'Come in Alone', 'Soon', 'Only Shallow', and 'To Hear Knows When'. So with that, they'll be going back into the studios and working on a new album and let's hope it's excellent.