support from aerial m and us maple

melody maker review

review from midnightpunk

this was a great gig. very packed venue, looking back it must have been sold out.

aeriel m where one of the best support cats i ever have seen. real lo-fi material but outstanding unassuming musicians. they looked the (usa) arty / nerd-rock-part and boy did they sound good. i did not know any of their material before seeing them but i’d recommend you dig some of their material from 1998 out if possible.

rate 9 out of 10.

mogwai were quietly becoming quite big in an underground kind of way. despite having a smattering of their 12 inches and lp’s i was not that familiar with their material. they, as quite a few bands do, picked up on the birmingham / black sabbath thing (i.e. playing in the city where sabbath are from). it always amazes me that the audience generally look non-plussed when bands do this. birmingham. industrial. sabbath. we should be proud. of note that mogwai put out a split 7 inch single with magoo at this time and did a wicked version of “black sabbath”.

anyway. i was really enjoying the show but left as the non-stop strobe and sheer amount of people in the venue made the mates i’d gone with want to leave. the strobe really was non sop and to an extent i could see their point – when we got out of the venue we all got that whoa! feeling you can only get by standing in a packed room blasted with feedback with constant strobe! we went to the nearby victoria for last orders. despite missing what must have been the last 15 minutes or so it was a great gig.

rate 9 out of 10.

review from the birmingham post

although many compliments have been paid to mogwai in the music press, they can hardly be described as media darlings. as for exposure on the air waves - the mogwai sound is not really devised with radio playlists in mind. it came as something of a shock, therefore, to find the foundry packed for the young glaswegian noise terrorists.

for the uninitiated, the first few minutes of the performance must have been bewildering. with most of the crowd chatting, stuart braithwaite and his co-conspirators gently strummed their guitars, repeating the same chord sequences as though still tuningup, before launching into a blistering white noise onslaught. the intensity was further heightened by brutal strobe lighting.

proceedings continued in this manner. beneath the racket, some semblance of melody could always be detected, while the quiet moments were hypnotic. even without vocals, the songs were engrossing.

my bloody valentine might have patented this ear and spirit-penetrating sound, but mogwai are worthy successors. of today's bands only spiritualized are as adept at exploring extremes in such a compelling fashion.

to say that no one left disappointed or underwhelmed would be a ludicrous understatement. by the time mogwai vacated the stage amid a sea of feedback and blinding visual pyrotechnics pyrotechnics, most fans appeared under the impression that their lives had been changed irreversibly.

oliver kirkland