The shoegaze band essentially played a live paid-in rehearsal gig last night in Dublin ahead of their official 3Arena show which kicks off their first run of dates since 2018.
The show was billed as Isn’t Anything, the name of the band’s debut 1988 album and was originally supposed to happen in a much smaller venue – The 350-capacity The Complex warehouse events space. Tickets quickly sold out on Monday but tickets were available again on Tuesday to such a degree that it was clear the venue had been upgraded.
The 2000-capacity National Stadium was the host for last night’s show for which the band asked no photography or video to be taken during the gig.
Doors were at 7.45pm and the zero degree cold was felt by those who were waiting outside for over an hour, after a long queue outside that reached past Leonard’s Corner off the South Circular Road was exacerbated by failing ticket scanning machines.
My Bloody Valentine came on stage at 9.30pm, and played 90 minutes of a 17-song set that was quite similar to those 2018 shows with six songs drawn from 1991’s Loveless, three from 1988’s Isn’t Anything, two from 2013’s M B V and six songs from the early EPs, including a live debut for Off Your Face from the Glider EP, along with their big numbers ‘I Only Said’, Soon’, ‘Only Shallow’, ‘When You Sleep’ and ‘You Made Me Realise’ with its noise-section closing the show.
‘To Here Knows When’ was started but abandoned after a couple of attempts due to some technical issues with the track.
The show had a lot of technical stops and starts, with Shields complaining of the experimental balloon ear plugs” part owned by ACDC (I think it was these ones) that keep falling out of their ears. A number of songs were restarted and Shields appeared fairly agitated by the tech issues.
Colm O’Ciosog’s drumming in particular leaving a lasting impression, but when everything worked, they really gelled and Shields stack of amps sounded three times louder than the Bilinda Butcher and Debbie Googe’s throughout.
The gig started out loud enough for earplugs but manageable at around 88db where I was standing just at the edge of the floor. Towards the end, the volume jumped and during the closer ‘You Made Me Realise’ I clocked a decibel level of 100.
My personal highlights were ‘Only Shallow’ and ‘Soon’ and pulverising ‘You Made Me Realise’. I loved hearing ‘I Only Said’ but as the intro it came to the room without any warmup so it didn’t land as much as some of the latter stuff once things got going.
Like when we did the listening parties for Loveless last month, I was struck by how My Bloody Valentine use the vernacular and instruments of rock music but very often end up creating something more approaching ambient noise music – a warped wall of sound, uninteligible vocal layers and crunching loud distortion – they might have become the shoegaze genre’s innovators but they often feel like they sit in a class all of their own.
Hopefully, with a couple more rehearsals this week, they will smooth out the difficulties (which were numerous but not insurmountable it must be said) and the set will soar in the 3Arena this Saturday, which will be the band’s official first headline show in Dublin since 1992.
Full tour dates and setlist below.
Of course, some photos and videos have emerged from last night.
my bloody valentine pic.twitter.com/wP8fNQrbMu
— IGNORERADIO SHOEGAZE (@IgnorelandRadio) November 20, 2025
@binaural_es My Bloody Valentine reactivan maquinaria. Con la intención de calentar motores de su cara a sus próximos directos, la legendaria banda de shoegaze ofrecio un concierto algo íntimo este miércoles en The National Stadium de Dublín. El show fue el primero que Kevin Shields y cía ofrecen en siete años, concretamente desde el Desert Daze Festival de 2018. El setlist contó con 19 temas diferentes, entre los que no fallaron ‘Come In Alone’, ‘Cigarette In Your Bed’, ‘Thorn,’ ‘Only Shallow’ u ‘Off Your Face’, canción del EP «Glider» (1990) que jamás había sido interpretada en vivo. Inicialmente el directo se iba a ofrecer en una sala más pequeña, pero el grupo decidió reprogramar el concierto para que se hiciese en el recinto con aforo para 2000 pax. #mybloodyvalentine #shoegaze #mbv #loveless ♬ sonido original – binaural_es
My Bloody Valentine – National Stadium setlist – November 19th 2025
- I Only Said (Loveless)
- When You Sleep (Loveless)
- New You (m b v)
- You Never Should (Isn’t Anything)
- Honey Power (Tremolo EP)
- Cigarette in Your Bed (You Made Me Realise EP)
- Only Tomorrow (m b v)
- Come in Alone (Loveless)
- Only Shallow (Loveless)
- Off Your Face – Live debut (Glider EP)
- Thorn (You Made Me Realise EP)
- Nothing Much to Lose (Isn’t Anything)
- To Here Knows When – aborted start twice then abandoned (Loveless)
- Slow (You Made Me Realise EP)
- Soon (Loveless)
- Feed Me With Your Kiss (Isn’t Anything)
- You Made Me Realise (You Made Me Realise EP)
“Who Sees You” and “Wonder 2” were listed on the printed setlist, but not played.
My bloody valentine – tour dates
November 22nd 2025 3Arena Dublin
November 24th 2025 Aviva Studio Manchester
November 25th 2025 OVO Arena Wembley London
November 27th 2025 OVO Hydro Glasgow
February 3rd 2026 Namba Hatch Osaka
February 4th 2026 Zepp Namba Osaka
February 6th 2026 Tokyo Garden Theatre Tokyo
February 9th 2026 Tokyo Garden Theatre Tokyo
June 4th 2026 Barcelona Primavera Sound
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
