My Bloody Valentine Played Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC with Dumb Numbers, 11/11/13

My Bloody Valentine's Bilinda Butcher at FYF Fest in August

You Made Me Realise

Life fills our minds with lots of things: work, kids, relationships, money, health, politics. It gets hard, sometimes, to have all of that stuff swimming around in our heads. It can feel overwhelming.

I was feeling a bit like that yesterday. I'd had four days off, and CoolMom was home from work for Veteran's Day. We had a great weekend as a family. CoolMom and I had a rare lunch date on Monday. But thinking about Tuesday morning, when I'd be getting up early to a day full of meetings, was like a weight.

As I climbed aboard the 5:43 PM train to New York, I resolved to stop thinking about Tuesday. I'd been looking forward to this show, and I should enjoy it. For me, that's sometimes easier said than done. All the way to the city on the train, in line as I waited for the Hammerstein Ballroom's pat down, even as Dumb Numbers did their set, I couldn't stop thinking about how early I needed to wake up, how many meetings awaited me on Tuesday.

Kevin Shields at FYF

Then, the letters "m b v" began to resolve on the screen behind the stage. The pink characters became clearer and more distinct against their blue background until Colm Ó Cíosóig, Debbie Googe, Bilinda Butcher, and Kevin Shields finally took the stage. Each grabbed a guitar, and they began with the drone of "Sometimes" from 1991's Loveless. From the first strains of that song, sound waves pounded my chest. I think I could feel my hair being tousled. By noise.

Colm Ó Cíosóig moved to his more familiar position behind the drums and My Bloody Valentine played a set spanning their entire career. They played Loveless classics like "I Only Said," "When You Sleep," "Come In Alone," and "Soon." They performed selections from their underrated, yet brilliant, debut full-length, Isn't Anything, like "Thorn," "You Never Should," and "Feed Me With Your Kiss." We heard "new you," "only tomorrow," "who sees you," and "wonder 2" from this year's mbv. The band even reached back to their earliest EPs for "Honey Power" and "Cigarette in Your Bed."  They closed, as expected, with 1988's "You Made Me Realise."

The recorded version of "You Made Me Realise" is an under four minute bit of noisy post punk. Unlike what came later for the band, the vocals and lyrics are audible and intelligible in the mix. It's almost poppy. The song has an approximately 45-second interlude -- a single chord delivered as pure noise -- right in the middle. What the band does with that section in a live setting has become the stuff of legend: 5 minutes, 9 minutes, 12 minutes, 25 minutes. Last night we got 6 minutes.

The floor shook, knocking our knees together. Noise pummeled our midsections. Those of us wearing glasses felt them vibrating on our faces. For 6 minutes, we were underwater, in front of a jet engine, floating in space, in the womb. For 6 minutes, there was no room for anything else in our heads. Our minds were clear. Our troubles were gone.

My train pulled in at about 12:45, and I started my walk home by running across the street before the barricades rose. Once the train left and the last vibrations of its horn and its bells were gone, my neighborhood was quiet. Things weren't totally silent, though. The wind was blowing through the trees, rustling what few leaves remained on the branches. I stopped in the middle of the street several times to close my eyes, to listen, and to take it all in before I got to the house. As best I could, I let my mind go blank, and I just focused on the leaves and the wind.

I punched the combination into the keypad on the garage door. I'm always afraid that the noise as it opens will awaken everyone in the house. I climbed upstairs, got into bed, and checked the alarm. I had to get the kids ready for school in the morning, and my meetings started at 8.