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Swervedriver

May 01, 2025 By Matthew Berlyant Photography by Matthew Berlyant Web Exclusive

Back in March 2024, Nothing’s Dominic “Nicky” Palermo created the Slide Away Festival. In its inaugural edition, the lineup featured performances in both Nothing’s native Philadelphia and Los Angeles as well, with Nothing themselves performing their 2014 album Guilty of Everything alongside newer and more established U.S. and shoegaze acts ranging from nineties Boston legends Swirlies to Mexico’s Mint Field. Fast forward to 2025 and after the success of the 2024 incarnation, Slide Away is back with New York and Los Angeles shows. This, the New York edition, featured DJ Norman Brannon (of the legendary Anti-Matter zine and a NYHC veteran who has played with everyone from Texas is the Reason, Shelter, and Resurrection to Thursday) spinning songs between sets, as well as Nothing co-headlining alongside their brother band, San Francisco shoegaze revivalists Whirr. Even better, it also featured the return of Swervedriver to these shores for the first time since their 2019 tour opening for Failure and indie-pop legends The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, playing their first, self-titled album in full after reuniting recently for their first shows since their 2019 breakup.This review will focus on the latter two artists.

Due to typical weekend MTA transportation issues, I unfortunately had to miss a small part of Pains’ set, but got there in time to hear roughly half of said 2009 debut with highlights being aplenty. “A Teenager in Love” (with Christ and heroin, respectively, as the song goes) was my favorite song of the set, which concluded with the non-setlist and non-album bonus song “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.” It’s thrilling to see Pains in a much larger space than I’d ever seen them at, as during their original run, they played small clubs and basements in Philadelphia alongside plenty of DIY spaces here in New York as well. They sounded glorious, as the venue’s mammoth sound system made sure they could be heard well. It was also thrilling to see them with original lineup stalwarts Peggy Yang on keyboards/backing vocals (their secret weapon) and drummer Kurt Feldman. On one hand, it felt like old times, yet not, given the size of the venue.

Starting about half an hour after Pains, Swervedriver wowed the crowd, a mix of mostly younger fans of the co-headliners and older shoegaze fans who have loved Swervedriver since their original run in the nineties, with a short but sweet nine songs set that, interestingly, mixed selections from their 2015 comeback album I Wasn’t Born to Lose You and the titular track of their brand new EP “The World’s Fair” with five songs of vintage ramalama from their first two LPs, 1991’s Raise and 1993’s towering’ Mezcal Head, respectively. Of course, the Raise and Mezcal Head material provided the highlights, with a bruising “Son of Mustang Ford,” “Never Lose that Feeling” and a rousing, set-closing version of “Duel” that made fans wish for a longer set! If I have one minor complaint, it’s that Adam Franklin’s vocals were barely audible up front in the photo pit (by comparison, Nothing sounded great there), whereas they were mixed beautifully when I stood further back and could hear almost every word, a tough feat amongst the noisy sonic maelstrom.

As Palermo later said during the beginning of Nothing’s set (which I didn’t get a chance to see all of, unfortunately, as I had a very early wake-up call the following morning), “no Swervedriver, no Nothing.” It’s nice to see younger generations finally giving Swervedriver the respect they’ve always deserved. Long story short, if this festival takes place again next year with such impeccable booking, I will definitely try to be there.