Top Ten Concerts

Yes, I admit this is both anal and childish, but I like to remember the places where my thoughts worked best – even if I didn’t remember much of it at show’s end.

10. Ravi Shankar, Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto (1983) Beautiful hall, incredible music. Top Ten Concerts

9. Emmylou Harris, The Boot Saloon, Toronto (1992) A honky-tonk night.Top Ten Concerts8. Tragically Hip, Cleveland Flats, Cleveland (1995) Canada’s greats, straight & full-on.Top Ten Concerts7. Guided by Voices, Fillmore West, San Francisco (2002) The club is open.Top Ten Concerts 6. Jane’s Addiction, Key Arena, Seattle (1995) Farrell and Navarro in summer dresses. Top Ten Concerts 5. Low, The Aquarium, Fargo (2012) Three full sets.Top Ten Concerts 4. My Bloody Valentine, Roseland Ballroom, New York (2008) Ears are still ringing. Top Ten Concerts

3. Noel Hill & Tony MacMahon, Mother Red Cap’s, Dublin (1994) The pure drop in a tavern.

. .Top Ten Concerts

2. Sufjan Stevens, Bowery Ballroom, New York (2013) The end of the world – December 21, 2112 – with a few hundred others. Top Ten Concerts 1. Grateful Dead, Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma (1985) Full moon, at a zoo.Top Ten Concerts (walstib)

My Bloody Valentine Play New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom

My Bloody Valentine are, as Rolling Stone Magazine says, committed to distortion; they deliver a wall of sound and light, and turn that around on itself.

My Bloody Valentine Play New York's Hammerstein Ballroom

My Bloody Valentine plays Hammerstein Ballroom on November 11

They take turns singing, or seeming to sing; there are no intelligible words, just murmuring beneath the din. My Bloody Valentine Play New York's Hammerstein BallroomThe sound builds, seems to get louder – although nothing like their 2008 tour – pauses and starts again, a certain blissed-out monotony, chaotic but not, that wears everything down, until it’s just one long thing, only stopping to breath, all of this until the last song, You Made Me Realise. My Bloody Valentine Play New York's Hammerstein BallroomThis final, drawn-out moment goes straight in, vibrates against the organs and veins and fights your heart rate until you feel like you’ve been initiated into a murderous cult. My Bloody Valentine Play New York's Hammerstein BallroomAnd then they leave, and that’s that.