I was just picking up my ticket and earplugs when Patti Smith was ushered through the crowd in front of me. I would have said hello, but the last time I spoke to her she threw a plate of sandwiches at me after I described her then-boyfriend, Allen Lanier of Blue Oyster Cult, as a ‘certifiable midget’. This was an uncommonly rude remark, I now realise, though I will say in nervous mitigation that at the time I’d recently seen BOC at Hammersmith Odeon and been struck by the thought that if it finally went tits up for the band they would all be assured of futures of some consequence as those wee clowns in the circus who are forever dashing hither, and amusingly yon, at high speed, running between the legs of men on stilts and throwing buckets of water over the crowd. Meanwhile, I’m now wondering what’s happening on stage, from which vicinity I can hear something that sounds like someone with no teeth to speak of attempting to bark like a dog. It turns out to be tonight’s support, Graham Coxon, who is gamely battling the audience’s growing anticipation for My Bloody Valentine. In the bar, I speak to several hardened MBV veterans who are almost beside themselves with excitement, and simultaneously apprehensive. Would the band live up to their vaulted expectations, their recollections of those shows 20 years ago that remain vivid in their memory? A chap named Ian, who had last seen them at Brixton Academy on the Rollercoaster tour, is particularly anxious. Back in the day, he’d been such a Valentines fan that when they split, he actually stopped going to gigs, and recently has only been to see Alicia Keys, his wife being a fan. She didn’t want to come tonight, so he’s brought his mate Kevin, who’s heard a lot from Ian about how brilliant MBV at one time were that even he’s worried about whether they can possibly match their own reputation. They do, of course, as John Mulvey vividly described in his Wild Mercury blog on www.uncut.co.uk. I saw the band several times back whenever, and they were never as great then as they are tonight when at times they sound like nothing else I’ve ever heard. As John pointed out, what’s happened in many ways is that technology’s caught up with them and we can now share more clearly Kevin Shields’ vision of what he always wanted them to sound like. The volume, as promised is extraordinary, but it’s not just the noise that blows me away – it’s the sheer unbelievable intensity, the utter density, of the sound, the layered sheets of guitars and sequencers, the cavernous rumblings of the rhythm section – Debbie Gould playing bass like Joe Strummer used to play rhythm guitar, which is to say with an absolute relentlessness, Colm O’Closoig’s drumming the colossal rhythmic ballast holding firm at the centre of the deafening hum. The by-now celebrated final 25 minutes of “You Made Me Realise” is truly astonishing – Neil Young’s similar guitar apocalypse on “Hidden Path”, as played a few months ago on his recent tour, merely hinting at this jaw-dropping meltdown, My Bloody Valentine here speaking to us in a musical language that is wholly their own. I hope Patti enjoyed it as much as I did.

One of the weirder and more heartening musical shifts of the past few years has been the way post-rockers have moved into looser, hairier, trad rock terrain. I’m thinking of records like Jim O’Rourke’s southern-tinged “Insignificance”, perhaps (Incidentally, O’Rourke has broken his musical exile, after a fashion, with something called Osorezan; more on that soon), as well as that palpable move towards heavy jams and psych by any number of college rock types in the wake of Stephen Malkmus. And so on. To these you can now add Dave Brylawski and Steve Popson, who first made a subterranean name for themselves in the ‘90s as part of the post-hardcore/math-rock/genre-friendly grouping known as Polvo. Polvo were venerated by a certain type of indie fan for their complexity, their precision, and a sort of forceful virtuosity. Also, in retrospect, they rocked a fair bit harder than most of their contemporaries. Which explains, I guess, Brylawski and Popson’s newish venture, Black Taj. The band seem to have been around a while (this seems to be their second album), and apparently Polvo are currently touring again. But “Beyonder” is our first encounter with this excellent group, and a record which has been heavily played here in the office, often close to that Endless Boogie record I keep going on about. Black Taj don’t choogle like Endless Boogie; at times, on the likes of “Damascus”, they can be dreamily ponderous, with historically pungent lyrical references to “Spanish castles” and such. They can, occasionally, boogie superbly, though. When “Damascus” ends, it’s followed by a heads-down riff which gradually fades in. This is “Spacewash”, somewhere between Status Quo and Hawkwind (and also, we’ve just collectively sussed, reminiscent of the “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” reprise at the end of Queens Of The Stone Age’s “Rated R”), which frustratingly fades out again pretty fast. And then “Only For A Moment”, reeking of ZZ Top’s “Tres Hombres”, and “LA Shift”, with that fuzzy low-end lurch so often promised by Dead Meadow, but rarely delivered. I guess post-rock was always a refuge for technically-minded musicians who were, thanks to the (at the time useful) strictures of hardcore, intensely wary of soloing and anything which could be termed as self-indulgence, and who consequently sometimes came across as rather uptight and chill. “Beyonder”, though, is one of those records that feels like a great warm liberation, a celebration of the pleasures of two guitars tracing intricate paths around each other – check out the mighty “Fresh Air Traverse” which I linked a few weeks ago - with a gusto. Somehow, heroically, Brylawski and his cohorts have managed to keep the meticulous spirit of adventure which invigorated their old music, and aligned it to an older, wilder tradition. Very good record.

“Class of ’88 reunion,” announces Sonic Boom. He has just played “Transparent Radiation” and is about to launch – launch may not be the right word, exactly; slope, perhaps? – into an excellent “When Tomorrow Hits”. In front of me, someone is wearing a “Goo” t-shirt. On the way to the Roundhouse, someone randomly proffered an open bottle of amyl. Only Sonic Boom’s haircut appears to have changed, slightly, in the intervening 20 years. Full review over at Wild Mercury Sound, folks.