On Wednesday night, I forced myself off my sick bed to watch Poliça play London's Troxy. I sacrificed West Ham v Norwich the previous night to ensure my fitness. I wasn't going to miss this.
Propped up by every medicine known to man, I chose to stand towards the back of the hall, calmly nodding along with like an old sage.
A few things:
1) I've been to the Troxy before but not downstairs. The acoustics are great and even at the back the view isn't too shabby if you're tall enough. A great venue.
2) There were around 3,000 of us. I'm so pleased this band have a fanbase they deserve.
3) Dark Star was the crowd favourite.
4) Everyone took a photo of Channy's wall shadow.
5) Closing the encore with a cover of 'You Don't Own Me' was inspired. (See this performance from US TV last year)
6) Two drummers always trumps one.
7) Channy.
8) There's some great photos at The Line Of Best Fit
9) Channy. Again.
10) Poliça are the best band in the world.
Less than 2 years ago @thisispolica played their 1st UK show to 200 people. Tonight they play to 3000. Pretty proud. pic.twitter.com/x6OvrEkcv6
— Olli Dutton (@obscenestrats) February 12, 2014This looks good.
Slowdive will be performing at this year's @LatitudeFest in Suffolk, UK. http://t.co/ghkKPu62Ax
— Slowdive (@slowdiveband) February 5, 2014Channelling New Order's True Faith video with scary cat lady grey hair.
(I'm so turned on right now.)
Joe Clay, for The Quietus:
The last time I saw Neil Halstead, back in October last year after his solo gig at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, I had just written a glowing review of his album as one-third of Black Hearted Brother for tQ, the gist of which was, "Hey losers, stop hankering after a Slowdive reunion and dig what’s going on now!"; a not unreasonable stance to take, seeing as the BHB album was brilliant, with Halstead busting out the effects pedals for the first time in almost two decades and making a “splendid freeform racket”. I joked with Halstead about this, and the fallacy of any imminent Slowdive reunion, sharing the story of how Steve Queralt [shoegaze namedrop clunk] once told me, apropos of a Ride reunion, that he hadn’t even picked up a bass guitar since the band split and it wasn’t as if he was just sat by the phone waiting for Andy and Mark to call. We laughed. Well, I laughed, but looking back, I can see that Halstead just grinned nervously and took a shifty pull on his roll-up. The sneaky bugger knew then what we all know now – Slowdive, the band at the vanguard of the shoegaze movement of the 1990s, the shoegazer’s shoegazers, the dreampop pioneers, have reformed.
In the early nineties the 'shoegaze' term was often used negatively. For the music press, grunge, the Manics, and latterly Suede and into Britpop were all more exciting and interesting to write about. Shoegaze bands, and Slowdive in particular, were always joked about, often contemptuously.
Two decades on and the longevity of the sound has been proven. It started with Kevin Shields but it was Slowdive that defined it, and which I continue to hear in a lot of dreampop music today from I Break Horses to Tamaryn.
As the Quietus article says, Slowdive are the shoegazer's shoegazers.
I've tried, but never really got into Mojave 3, so today's news about the reformation, a move back to the electric guitars and effects, with the possibility of new music is terrific. I've always enjoyed this sound.
I love that fact that there are now plenty of fans of the band who weren't even born when the band split, and who thought they would never get a chance to see them.
23 years ago (!) I did. Slowdive supported Ride at what was the Town & Country Club in London's Kentish Town. It was marvellous.
Halstead, Goswell, Gardener and Bell sharing a bill again remains a dream but today it became a little bit closer.