My Bloody Valentine to Øya on August 8

The Øya Festival has always been about new music, but every year we’ve made a point of offering our audience some of the pioneers within different genres of rock, or, in other words, artists that are a major reason why current music sounds the way it does. Several people here at the Øya office suffered a serious shock and began hyperventilating after we got word late last night that My Bloody Valentine will be coming to the Medieval Park in August.
Next Tuesday, Feb. 5, Day Passes for Friday Aug. 8 will be made available – and that, all ye shoegazers, is the date on which My Bloody Valentine will perform at Øya.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE (IE/UK)
We’re extremely proud and happy about having booked the legendary My Bloody Valentine for the Øya Festival 2008. We’ve tried to make this happen ever since we heard rumors last year about them going back out on the road. Øya will be one of very few festivals that the band will appear at this summer.

My Bloody Valentine spearheaded the so-called shoegazer wave at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s. They developed further the musical ideas of Velvet Underground, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Beach Boys, Birthday Party, and Sonic Youth to create their own unique sound. They’ve inspired several generations of indie bands and have been a significant influence on the sound of bands like Ride, Lush, and Norway’s very own Serena Maneesh.

The band emerged in Dublin in the mid-80s, then spent some time in Berlin, and finally ended up in London. All the time they were lead by New York expatriate Kevin Shields. The band name was supposedly taken from a Canadian B-flick. For a long time they were signed to the legendary label Creation, on which they released quite a few EPs, not to mention the classic albums ‘Isn’t Anything’ (1988) and ‘Loveless’ (1991). The band went through a musical development that manifested itself in the mysterious, dreamy, airy, and psychedelic rock on the latter mentioned album – which on several occasions has been picked out as one of the best and most important albums of the 90s.

After ‘Loveless’ the band spent large sums of money on recordings that nobody yet has seen or heard. Guitar player Kevin Shields has since then cooperated with indie names like Primal Scream, J. Mascis, Curve, and Sugar.

My Bloody Valentine has already been booked to play a few festivals and other gigs in Great Britain, and the first London gig among those was sold out in less than a minute after the tickets were made available. Kevin Shields has also revealed that a new album is under way. We can’t wait to see this band perform in the Medieval Park!