my bloody valentine; SF, CA

this shot by solid goldstein essentially to the back and side of stage.
he powered his way over during the white-noise segment (what the band
refers to as "the holocaust section") of the last song.

essentially it's raw feedback with no discernable beat or sonic quality
over-and-above "on." this was accompanied by banks of super-bright LEDs
firing in what could only be described as cro-magnon inspired patterns.

i enjoyed this part of the show very much and was disappointed that i
had to flee before it was over to (barely) make the last train of the
night back home. i liked it not so much for the "music" but for the raw
audacity of subjecting a few thousand people to the sensual seepage of
it all ... and doing it for 25 minutes straight.

when i left the venue, half a block away it sounded like a jet was
landing where the concert hall was. seven blocks away you could still
hear the drone above the street noise.

as any avid reader knows all-too-painfully-well, i've been playing with
the video capabilities of my new hiptop (posting using blogger is
joyfully simple). i also tend to post pictures and quotes without
comment because i prefer the art museum approach of
interpret-this-however-you-want (although, obviously, i always know why
*i* posted it).

i'm breaking my rule this time, though. the attached clip is remarkably
good at showing the psychological raw confusion of the situation. the
audio and video are heavily over-driven in much the same way this
assault grabs your physical being. if you turned up your speakers as
loud as you possibly could, them directly against your ears, moved your
eyes close enough to the screen that you could see nothing else, and
then looped this 75x, it'd be pretty close to the actual experience.

not that i think you should do that.