By: Jackie Lo

What happens when you fall in love with a boy that has impeccable music taste and your life is filled with music and laughter and love for 24 years and then one day, poof, he’s gone? What happens to the music and to your heart every time a song comes on that makes you think of them? It’s a lump in your throat. It’s the tingling in your nose and watering of your eyes. It’s the laughter and the curse you quietly say to the skies. It’s what is left of his love.

We set our alarms for 2:45 A.M. so we could be in queue for when the tickets went on sale at 3:00 A.M. and we laid in bed, both of us on our phones and laptops. After a mad dash, a few phone throws against the headboard and more than a few choice words at the ticketing company, we finally secured two extremely shitty seats to a show we both considered a bucket list show. My Bloody Valentine…in Dublin. When were we going to get another chance? I’d never seen them and he’d only seen them once, back in ‘91 (34 years ago!) and this show was in Ireland which had been on our list to visit for some time as well. It was a cold November morning in 2024 and the show wasn’t until November of 2025 so we had a whole year to plan.  Little did I know that 6 months later he’d be gone.

When you know someone that well, you know how they’d respond to every situation to the point of knowing the exact words they’d say. I could hear him saying, “You have to go. You’re an idiot if you don’t go.” So, I packed my bags, planned a full week in Ireland and had the trip of a lifetime. From walking the streets of Dublin and getting a full Irish breakfast and going to Trinity College to day trips to The Cliffs of Moher, kissing the Blarney Stone, and a day up north in Belfast for Giant’s Causeway, it was all stunning. I met up with a friend in Dublin on the last day, hit the pop up merch sale, grabbed lunch, and then saved the best for last, the show itself.

Luckily, one of my friends that lives abroad had already gotten tickets to the show as well and she had an extra ticket that was considerably better than mine and gave it to me (Thank you, Brooke!) It was a sold-out 14,500 capacity at 3Arena filled with people of all ages, couples, teenagers, family of the band members, fellow musicians, and lots and lots of excited fans. I will say, the men outnumbered us ladies and it might be the first show I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to a lot) where I walked by the men’s room that had an insane line, but the women’s restroom didn’t even have a wait. 

The guys sitting next to me were from Paris and the one right next to me talked about the first time he heard Loveless and how it had changed his life. He went out immediately and tried to find the gear to replicate the sound. The guitar, the pedals, the amps. It was the exact conversation I’d heard from my partner when he first told me of his love of Loveless. It was an addiction to sound recreation that he chased his whole life. That album and that band changed his whole outlook on life, his whole outlook on music, and all these years later, this young fan from Paris is telling me the exact same story. I just smiled and looked at the photos of his gear and showed him photos of my guitar and amp and we nerded out for a bit while waiting for the opening act.  I leaned over and apologized before My Bloody Valentine started and said, “I’m sorry, I’m probably going to cry a lot during this show” and he just beamed and said “Don’t worry. Me too.”. 

It’s hard to explain the show to someone who wasn’t there but I’ll try. First, it was a full body experience. It was like sitting under the space shuttle as it’s launching and feeling the vibrations through your head and chest and it’s exhilarating where you’re smiling like an idiot, yet you can hear every guitar part and every song perfectly clear. I kept thinking “How is this possible?”. I’d been warned that it would be the loudest show I’d ever go to, and they were right. I brought earplugs, but took them out for certain songs so I could fully experience it. My head vibrated to the point where I felt like I could feel my brain pulsing against my skull. From the first note, I felt the tears sting. This was it. This was 24 years of love stories about this band from my partner. This was 24 years of listening to this album with him and first kisses and running off to Vegas to get married and….our whole life. This was a year of planning a trip alone. This was 6 months without him and the grief and the greatest tragedy of my life. This was his love…what was left of his love coursing through me. From “I Only Said” to “When You Sleep”, “Only Shallow”, “Soon”, to “Feed Me With Your Kiss” and “You Made Me Realise”, it was better than any therapy. The hour and a half of tears were a detox cleanse. The vibrations were a sound bath. I left feeling lighter…feeling reborn and even though he might not have been there, I felt him with me the entire time.

-Jackie Lo