LIVES
Derided in the ’90s; revered since. Reading originators make indisputable sonic rejoinder. By Andrew Male.
Slowdive rewired in The Hague, Agnes Obel in a Seattle cowboy bar.
“BAND AND AUDIENCE IMMERSED IN LUXURIOUS SILVER WAVES OF SOUND AND EMOTION.”
Slowdive Rewire Festival, Paard van Troje, The Hague
Context is everything. When Slowdive unexpectedly reformed in 2015 it was for Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, a festival which prides itself on its immaculate mix of ticket-shifting headliners, hip contemporary acts and it’ll-never-happen reunions. The timing was perfect. Once the most derided band in the UK, whose bewitching psychedelic muliebrity quickly became a mid-’90s hate target for grunge and Britpop boys and snide rock journos, Slowdive have, over the course of 20 years, quietly fallen back into favour, the band’s washed-out acidfolk harmonies and grand surges of lysergic 12-string guitar noise becoming a huge influence on such current pop-psych outfits as Tame Impala, Deerhunter, Beach House, labels such as Rocket Recordings and Sonic Cathedral and every third band on the bill at Liverpool Psych Fest. Wisely, Slowdive refused to work their newfound favour as a mere nostalgia trip, delaying their full return until a new studio album was in the works, recorded with the original lineup. Whether playing alongside Canadian pitchshift psychtronic duo Purity Ring, or choosing Michelle Zauner’s new lonesome dream-pop outfit Japanese Breakfast as their tour companions, Slowdive have done everything right for this tour, which extends to tonight’s gig, as headlining act at Holland’s annual festival of experimental, underground and contemporary music, appearing on the same bill as Pharmakon, Horse Lords, Blanck Mass and Jesse Lanza in The Hague’s Paard van Troje, a Rem Koolhaas-designed industrial space of glass and steel, hidden behind a classical facade; simultaneously modern and retro. The majority of tonight’s audience resembles a gathering of hip architects; slim, black-clad, an impressive mix of men and women, some old enough to have caught them back in the early ’90s, others young enough to have not even been conceived of when the band last released an album; a rare few even model strange modern variations on the early-’90s Slowdive bowl-cut. The band themselves appear changed but unchanged, older, obviously, yet still rocking their late-’80s one-colour indie uniform: Rachel Goswell in bell-sleeved black dress and black tights, with lead guitarist Neil Halstead, bassist Nick Chaplin and drummer Simon Scott all sporting a variation of black jeans, black Spacemen 3 T-shirts and black denim jacket, with guitarist Christian Savill even modelling one of those shapeless hairy jumpers so beloved of late-’80s bedsit teen mopers. It’s as if they’ve been locked in a rehearsal studio for the past 25 years, deprived of outside influence. This is only confirmed with tonight’s opening track, Avalyn. The Cocteausian B-side to the band’s debut 1990 EP, tonight Avalyn’s dreamlike wash of wistful, blurred vocals and shimmering guitar reverb hits harder and stronger than it ever did at those Slowdive gigs a quarter of a century ago. Similarly, 1991’s swooningly serene Catch The Breeze now sounds ineffably bereft, while the haunted voice and fragile guitar loops of Crazy For You (from their still underrated 1995 LP, Pygmalion) take on an extra poignancy and power. This is partly to do with the fact that the various members of Slowdive are far better musicians than they were in the early ’90s, but it also has to do with the passing of time. A mood of euphoric romantic melancholy, has always surrounded these songs, especially tracks like Machine Gun and Souvlaki Space Station, taken from their second LP and written in the wake of Halstead’s and Goswell’s collapsed romantic relationship. At the time, this mesmeric sense of sorrow was taken by some for stoned middle-class indulgence (“I’m sooo depressed”), but tonight, performed with the knowledge and weight of passing years, in front of a barrage of strobing lights and swirling projections, and juxtaposed with such powerful new songs as Star Roving and Sugar For The Pill, the feeling is one of rhapsodic vindication, a band fully aware of the emotional and sonic power of music they were long ago dismissed for. As such, the evening is at its best when band and audience become fully immersed in these luxurious silver waves of sound and emotion, and beyond a few muttered “thank you”s there is little extraneous audience interaction tonight. But, just occasionally, when cheers go up for the opening chords of certain songs, or someone shouts a request for some obscure demo, Goswell and Halstead go and ruin it all by cracking a smile, visibly delighted amidst all this whirling sadness.