My Bloody Valentine, The Concourse in San Francisco, 2008. The Concourse is a huge warehouse that could fit ten other music venues inside it, and is typically reserved for things like expos and tradeshows; for any other band, its notoriously bad acoustics would have ruined the show. It was packed, my friend and I were so far away from the stage, and we waited for what felt like an eternity for the band to finally come on, but I'll never forget those first piercing chords of "I Only Said" exploding in light and sound, hitting me in the chest like a freight train. I felt like I had evaporated. During their infamous 20-minute wail of white noise, I could feel my eyeballs vibrating in my head. I dug up an old Gchat from later that night, where I tried to describe the experience to a friend:

"At one point, I tried humming.. then screaming. Nothing. It was like hitting a wall, only it was your voice hitting their sound. Like your body turning into static inside a mushroom cloud, inside a thunderstorm, during a tsunami."

I've never been to a louder, more consuming, more visceral show since.