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Slowdive at Palace Theatre, St Paul (02 May 2017)

Slowdive Setlist Slomo (Live debut) Catch the Breeze Crazy for You Machine Gun Star Roving Avalyn Souvlaki Space Station When the Sun Hits Alison Sugar for the Pill She Calls Golden Hair (Syd Barrett cover) -- Encore -- Slowdive No Longer Making Time 40 Days Tour Dates 05/05 Danforth Music Hall, Toronto 05/07 9:30 Club, Washington, DC 05/08 Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY 05/09 Brooklyn Steel, Brooklyn, NY 05/10 Cat's Cradle, Carrboro, NC Read More Slowdive Shoegaze band Slowdive are currently on a reunion tour, stopping by Minneapolis' Fine Line Music Café, after being absent from the city in twenty-two years! .... Japanese Breakfast Opening will be singer Michelle Zauner, of Philadelphia indie punk band Little Big League, under the solo moniker of Japanese Breakfast. The music showcases Zauner's dark ...

Reunited shoegazing English band Slowdive recently headlined the new Palace Theatre in St Paul on Tuesday, May 2nd.

Since the Palace’s opening in March 2017 (with first national act Phantogram), the venue has been booking a ton of great bands, including the xx, String Cheese Incident, and, of course, Slowdive.

DJ Jake Rudh played music before the start of the show .... which was unexpected, but not really a surprise if you follow his work. Rudh is a big fan of UK bands, particularly of the 70s-80s era. His playlist on Tuesday was a little more expanded, since it wasn’t just limited to music videos (there was no video setup at the Palace Theatre). The music is what you would expect at a typical Transmission show.

Oregon’s Japanese Breakfast opened up the show. We’ve seen the band multiple times, and every time singer and band leader Michelle Zauner (who is Korean, not Japanese) kept adding people to her live band: starting with a duo, then trio, and, now on Tuesday’s show, they are a quartet.

Even though Zauner still do not understand the differences between St Paul and Minneapolis, she always made sure that they mentioned local band Strange Relations. Apparently Zauner’s first ever band was in Strange Relations (who we believe started on the east coast before locating to Minneapolis), so it’s with heartfelt love that she dedicated ‘Everybody Wants to Love You’ (from their record Psychopomp) to the local trio.

The band recently announced their lead single ‘Machinist’, taken from their forthcoming Soft Sounds From Another Planet album - set for July 14th release via Dead Oceans.

We were pretty excited (and lucky) to have caught Slowdive in October 2014 and made for one of the most memorable shows we’ve attended. Part of the fun was that the band (guitarist/singer Neil Halstead, guitarist/singer Rachel Goswell, bassist Nick Chaplin, guitarist Christian Savill, and drummer Simon Scott), all dressed up in costumes for Halloween.

We actually thought that was it for the reunion tour, so it was pretty exciting to hear a year ago, that the band, was in fact, writing and recording new material. Since they came back together, the band had to re-learn how to play their old songs... and that put in motion the inspiration to put together new songs to better reflect the band now. As a result, the band’s self-titled 2017 record is coming out May 5th, via Dead Oceans.

The band seemed really excited to play the new songs, giving us the live debut of ‘Slomo’ as the intro song. As the song title suggest, this was a “slow-motion”, slow-burning buildup song.

All of their songs were also accompanied by various imagery, which were projected on the background... often in sync with the flow of the songs. This tells me that the band put a lot of thoughts into making for an interesting show, especially since the custom videos are unique to each song.

Fans of their 90s records (Just for a Day, Souvlaki , and Pygmalion) were in for a treat, as many of those songs were played on their set. Newer songs, like the lead single ‘Star Roving’, were played sparingly. They ended their set with a Syd Barrett cover, ‘Golden Hair’... which was the same set closer from their 2014 set.

Look for Slowdive’s self-titled in stores this Friday. Slowdive is continuing their U.S. tour.

Marquee	Japanese Breakfast	Japanese Breakfast	Slowdive Setlist	Slowdive
Slowdive	Slowdive	Slowdive	Slowdive	Slowdive

Slowdive at Palace Theatre, St Paul (02 May 2017)

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic

Slowdive at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (31 Oct 2014)

Halloween with Slowdive photo courtesy of Slowdive Slowdive Setlist Intro song "Halloween Theme" by John Carpenter Slowdive Avalyn Catch The Breeze Crazy For You Machine Gun Souvlaki Space Station Blue Skied an' Clear When The Sun Hits Morningrise She Calls Dagger Alison Golden Hair (Syd Barrett cover) -- Encore -- Albatross 40 Days Low Setlist No Comprende Plastic Cup On My Own Holy Ghost Monkey Murderer Shame/Laser Beam High + Right Landslide Tour Dates 11/03/14 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom 11/04/14 Seattle, WA The Neptune 11/05/14 Portland, OR McMenamins Crystal 11/07/14 San Francisco, CA Warfield Theatre 11/08/14 Los Angeles, CA Theatre At Ace Hotel 12/19/14 London, United Kingdom The Forum 12/20/14 London, United Kingdom The Forum Discography [1991] Just for a Day [1993] Souvlaki [1995] Pygmalion Read More Slowdive This January, a mysterious text read, “here she comes…”, a song from Slowdive’s second album, Souvlaki; and with that, the long-awaited reunion was in motion for this Reading, UK shoe-gaze … Low Attention then shifted to the small Satellites stage for Duluth’s Low, who opened with two new songs from their latest, The Invisible Way (Sub Pop Records) before drummer Mimi Parker took over for a slo-core …

Shoegaze band Slowdive are currently on a reunion tour, stopping by Minneapolis' Fine Line Music Café, after being absent from the city in twenty-two years!

Local DJ Jake Rudh played some 80s music for fans waiting for the band to take the stage. Originally music videos, but after Low, there was no video screen, so it was just audio.

Low

Low came on stage as ZZ Top, complete fuzzy guitars and horseshoe moustache on drummer Mimi Parker. The band Duluth band have been busy playing support dates for Slowdive on this current tour, which singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk described Slowdive "as sweet as they sound."

Low Setlist

The slo-core band played a block of The Invisible Way early in their set ("Plastic Cup", "On My Own", and "Holy Ghost") and filling out the rest of their limited set with songs from their previous other albums. Since it was Halloween, the band said it was fitting that they played "Murderer".

The audience was completely attentive and quiet, which is the perfect crowd for Low's music... but a few of us wondered why there was the rare barrier to the stage at the Fine Line Music Café. It was probably because it was sold out (but I've attended many sold out shows at the Fine Line and they never had a barrier), but it's probably more likely that it was set up to give easier access to photographers.

Before we talk about Slowdive, you have to get yourself familiarized with Shoegazing music, which is typically full of guitar effects and layers with melodic vocals blending in. Check out our 40-min podcast on the subject, which we discussed Slowdive (later Mojave 3), among others. That type of music took roots in the early 90s, but almost immediately went away as the popular Britpop genre that took over England in the early to mid-90s. With the recent revival of Chapterhouse and My Bloody Valentine, it might be worth your time to check out some of these bands' back catalog to get a complete picture of the genre.

Slowdive

Anyway, Halloween shows are always fun, because half the fun of watching the band is also watching the audience for some great costumes. Usually bands will come on stage in costumes, but for Reading-based Slowdive, they went all out! Not only was everyone, including the audio techs and sound engineers, dressed up, but they went the extra mile and dressed their stage with various Halloween fun like cobwebs, handmade pirate flags, skulls, pumpkins, candies! This tells me the band are really committed to show us a good time!

Talking to fans before the show, there were a lot of people who never caught the band the first time around when they came to the US with Ride in 1992, so they were all eager to see Slowdive for the first time. Fans drove as far as from Oklahoma City (a six hour drive) just to see this Slowdive appearance.

Slowdive Setlist

As soon as Slowdive came on stage to John Carpenter's "Halloween Theme", the band handed everyone in front glowsticks to get us into the dark mood. In addition to the Halloween decorations, the band also had a custom stage projection of graphics to their songs. With Slowdive's live set, they did a great job reproducing tracks from their three studio albums (Just for a Day, Souvlaki and Pygmalion) with some great vocals from Slowdive's two main songwriters, Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell. In fact, most of the primarily original band members (drummer Simon Scott, bassist Nick Chaplin, guitarist Christian Savill) were really tight on their instruments, as if they have been rehearsing since the 90s.

In the middle of their set, the band handed us Halloween candies, which was such a treat. They would later hand us candies again on their encore. I've attended a lot of Halloween concerts, and this is the first time the band brought us sweets.

The biggest cheers of the night had to before "Machine Gun" and "Alison". The set closer, "Golden Hair", Syd Barrett cover, had Rachel leaving early to let the rest of the band play an extended jam as the audience cheered on until the band left the stage, only to come back for the inevitable encore. Two tracks "Albatross" and "40 Days" were played to perfectly end their show.

With a lot of interests and rumors of Slowdive to record a fourth studio album, we all hope they'll return back to the city soon and not take another 20 years to come back. I doubt anyone in the audience will likely forget this show.

Slowdive will be in Vancouver, Canada, on November 3rd and continues to the West Coast (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and ending in Los Angeles) before returning to London at the Forum for a two night residency. If those dates are not already sold out, you must do yourself a favor and get a ticket.

Slowdive at Fine Line Music Cafe, Minneapolis (31 Oct 2014)

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com/weheartmusic