NOTE: All photos are copyright of Dean Keim 2025
The groundbreaking dreampop gurus and shoegaze spellcasters Slowdive are back on the road again after spending the last couple years crossing the globe in a triumphant revival after 2023’s divine Everything Is Alive album was so warmly received. They even attracted a surprising amount of young fans to the show, as I saw a lot of fresh-faced fans singing along to the songs peppered in with the grey-haired older crowd who were likely devotees since the 90’s. This diverse horde packed together into this remote New Jersey venue Starland Ballroom that itself has a rich history that goes way back to the 1960’s, and showed that their phoenix-like rebirth has sparked something special in the music scene. The band made a splash when they trickled up through the scene in the indie explosion of the early 90’s, but their ambient propensities and heavily layered atmospheres influenced the musical world far beyond their shoegazing scene. However, by 1994, after just three monumental albums, they were done as a band, and they went on and formed offshoot efforts like Mojave 3 and Monster Movie, but over time, they gathered a ravenous following of fanatics, and they finally reunited at Primavera in 2014 after almost two decades apart, and they again influenced a new generation of shoegazers like Empire Of The Sun, Mew, DIIV, BDRMM, and Haunted Youth. Since then, they’ve been brewing an even larger cauldron of witches brew with a couple of seriously awesome albums and lots of touring, including this outing of smaller and more intimate venues to bring their dreamy soundscapes to an ever-larger fan base of younger followers.
I feel like this new following may very well have been exposed to these classic shoegazing legends through the TikTok platform, and thusly it was appropriate that the show’s opener was the Florida native quannnic who became a viral hit in 2020 with the TikTokers and have continued to expand their sound from their digicore origins to a maturing mix of emo gazing. I did personally gravitate to the more crunching grind of their harder-rocking tunes, but I will say that some of their more mellow tunes felt like they lacked the more harmonic melodies that the songs deserved. Overall though, I look forward to hearing where they take their nu-gaze sounds next.
Click on photos to enlarge
When Slowdive came out on stage, I couldn’t help but feel that this was a seasoned band finally feeling secure in their legacy enough to take a true victory lap. The lineup is still all the original members continuing to cast their mystical enchantments, including keyboardist/vocalist Rachel Goswell, vocalist/guitarist Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and even drummer Simon Scott, who was technically a newer edition, even though he’s been in the lineup since 1991 and has been on all their studio albums. The whole set overflowed with intricate guitar work, dreamy vocals, and immersive visuals, often highlighted by psychedelic projections, that left the crowd completely bewitched and transported into a whole new World. The stage show was particularly glorious, with graphics, colors, and movements manipulating everybody’s senses just as much as the gorgeously dreamy tunes. Their set really mixed up their new songs with their 90’s classics with newer faves like “Star Roving” and “Kisses” with oldie masterworks like “When the Sun Hits,” “Alison,” “Souvlaki Space Station,” “Sugar for the Pill,” and even “40 Days” as the glorious closer to the night. It’s gratifying to see this band sounding better than ever and flourishing again after all these years and getting the credit they deserve.
Click on photos to enlarge
