Last Saturday (March 9), the city of Philadelphia hosted the inaugural Slide Away festival at the stunning Union Transfer. The festival was created and centered around Philadelphia’s Nothing as a way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the band’s debut album Guilty of Everything. The night turned into much more than an opportunity for Nothing to play the album front to back, it quickly transformed into a celebration of all things shoegaze.
The 1,200-capacity venue was sold out and brimming with shoegaze fanatics from all different eras and styles. The lineup represented the crowd better than any festival I’ve been to in recent years. In light of corporations taking over iconic festivals like Coachella, Slide Away was a refreshing take on the current festival landscape and was executed in a stellar way. Shoegaze bands that have withstood the test of time like Swirlies shared a stage with some of the most forward-thinking acts in the genre’s current scene like Knifeplay. One after the other, each band seemed to relish their time on stage, and in turn, each band brought their uniqueness to life in front of a sold-out Union Transfer on a cold, rainy day in Philly.
The first band of the day was Glixen, a four-piece from Phoenix, Arizona who set the bar high right out of the gates. By intertwining shoegaze tropes with spurts of spiritual jazz, the band separated themselves from the pack, using the space between songs almost as much as the songs themselves. Songs that sounded stunning in a live setting, hypnotic percussion that wrapped around the room like a warm embrace. Glixen sounded like the product of Jimi Hendrix and Alice Coltrane forming cascading melodies from a young band that made everyone a fan that night.
Next up was veteran shoegazer Astrobrite. One of Scott Cortez’s more notable projects, the iconic band that influenced just about every other band on the line-up showcased exactly why. Their subtle grooves settled in the room like a psychedelic fog, the visuals that accented their set felt like having a bad trip only for the perfect song to pull you back into reality. It felt like the walls of Union Transfer got goosebumps every time the bass player let out a touch of ambiance before the trio launched into their undeniable chemistry. A veteran band humbly put every jaw on the floor with spurts of heaven-sent vocals and dense textures that left the audience in a deep state of hypnosis.
One of the highlights of the night was Philadelphia’s own Knifeplay. If there is one band to recommend seeing from Slide Away, it’s Knifeplay. Seeing their youthful ambition manifest into the layered melancholy that echoed through Union Transfer’s high ceilings. A meditative experience, the band deployed the gentle touch of their harmonies to corral the avalanche of melodies produced by their instrumentation. “This our first time playing this one live” announced the band before two of the three songs on their setlist. Considering it was their first time playing these songs live, Knifeplay made their hometown proud by seamlessly twisting their unique take on balladry with their multitude of other talents.
Mint Field put on the kind of performance that creates a line around their merch table. The trio flew all the way from Mexico to bring the city of brotherly love their unique take on shoegaze. Their pop tendencies came to life and flourished via slight touches of jazz. They fuse the slow-burning tones of shoegaze with moments of technicolored pop for a live experience that feels like a dreamscape.
Of all the incredible bands that graced the stage on this rainy Saturday in Philadelphia, They Are Gutting A Body of Water seems to have cracked the code of making the stage their own. The band performed their whole set with their back turns and the drummer didn’t sit down once, I’m not sure there was a stool available for them. In lieu of eye contact, the band would explode into one song after the next as if trying to outrun their own ferocious chords and neck-breaking drum patterns. In between songs, they would let EDM-style instrumentals echo throughout the venue, never wasting a second of their stage time. TAGABOW used juxtaposing tones that collided with each other like a Pollock painting, it was a performance with a pureness that seemed to wash the world away.
Scott Cortez then swaggered back on stage with long-time collaborator and fellow veteran Melissa Arpin for a rare performance from Lovesliescrushing. After the firework-style showmanship of TAGABOW, the duo looked to bring things down to earth. Ironically, their method of doing so was cosmic soundscapes lined with ambient minimalism that evoked the feeling of flight. Their uncanny ability to build sonic worlds larger than the one we’re standing on and make them sound intimate and personal is immaculate. Lush vocal tones fell with the gentleness of a snowflake atop musicianship that is more akin to the Milky Way than anything human.
When the Swirlies play, the world seems to come to a halt. Not a single text was checked and not a single eye left the stage once the shoegaze mainstays picked up their instruments. The band was able to capture the magic of their legacy without living in the past, bringing their storied history to the present with a set that never let off the brakes. Even at its most chaotic, the band played like a tightly structured poem, understanding themselves enough to break their own rules and land on another stratosphere. The entire room nodded in unison as an underappreciated act made sure everyone left a fan with a smile on their face.
The night came to a harmonious crescendo as hometown heroes Nothing put on a performance of a lifetime. The band interchanged their lineup to bring the most accurate performance of their stellar debut with original members of Nothing sliding in and out of position. As the iconic Nothing white flag from the cover of Guilty of Everything waves in the background, the band walks into the history books of Philadelphia music. Proudly displaying scenes of the city, the band transported the whole venue to 2014. The nostalgia intertwined with the music itself for something completely new. This album has been out for ten years, it has been listened to thousands of times in thousands of different moods and environments. Hearing it live in such a celebratory way in its home city brings completely new magic to the moment. The title track made an appearance in a Nothing setlist for the first time since 2016 and “Beat Around The Bush” was brought to life for the first time since 2015.
Slide Away festival is something the city of Philadelphia needs more of. The inaugural festival showcased the history of shoegaze and combined it with its future for a night of performances that brought the nuance of the genre into a new light. Each band seemed carefully chosen to highlight a different era or subgenre of shoegaze and each did a phenomenal job of representing their style. Slide Away Festival will have its second date in Los Angeles on March 30 with Nothing continuing their celebratory campaign for ten years of their iconic debut album.
