Shoegaze originators Slowdive have been announced for their first ever proper shows in Ireland this November.
The band will play their first ever headline shows at Mandela Hall, Belfast on Sunday November 5th and The National Stadium, Dublin on Monday November 6th. The band played a festival only in 2014, previously.
The shows are on sale this Friday June 23rd at 10am from ticketmaster.ie and singularartists.ie. Tickets £30 (Belfast) & €35 (Dublin) + booking fee subject to service charges.
It coincides with the announcement of the band’s fifth studio album, everything is alive, out 1st September on Dead Oceans, preceeded by the song ‘Kisses’.
The announcement comes ahead of the band’s first-ever Glastonbury performance this weekend.
2023 Tour Dates:
June 24: Exeter, UK – Phoenix [sold out]
June 25: Glastonbury Festival, UK
July 17: Perth, Aus – Astor Theatre [sold out]
July 19: Brisbane, Aus – Princess Theatre [sold out]
July 21: Sydney, Aus – Enmore Theatre
July 22: Melbourne, Aus – Forum [sold out]
July 23 :Adelaide, Aus – Hindley St Music Hall
July 26, Auckland, NZ – Powerstation [sold out]
July 29: Fuji Rock Festival, Japan
August 5: Off Festival, Poland
August 11: Ypsigrock Festival, Sicily
August 18: Green Man Festival, Wales
September 23: Toronto, ONT – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
September 25: Boston, MA – Citizens House of Blues Boston
September 27: NYC, NY – Webster Hall
September 28: NYC, NY – Webster Hall
September 29: Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
September 30: Washington, DC – 930 Club
October 2: Cleveland, OH – The Roxy @ Mahall’s
October 3: Chicago, IL – Riviera Theatre
October 4: St. Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
October 6: Denver, CO – Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
October 7: Salt Lake City, UT – The Union
October 9: Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
October 10: Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo
October 12: San Francisco, CA – The Warfield
October 14: Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
Oct 30 – Glasgow, UK – QMU
Oct 31 – Manchester, UK – Ritz
Nov 1 – Bristol, UK – SWX
Nov 3 – London, UK – Troxy
Nov 5 – Belfast, NI – Mandela Hall
Nov 6 – Dublin, IE – National Stadium
About Slowdive – everything is alive
1. shanty
2. prayer remembered
3. alife
4. andalucia plays
5. kisses
6. skin in the game
7. chained to a cloud
8. the slab
Pre-order everything is alive here
The fifth album from shoegaze giants Slowdive contains the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings. everything is alive is transportive, searching and aglow, the work of a classic band continuing to pitch its unmistakable voice to the future. Six years after the group’s monumental self-titled album, everything is alive finds Slowdive—vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin, and drummer Simon Scott—locating evermore contours of its immersive, elemental sound.
The new record began with Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived of everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” Slowdive’s collective decision-making ultimately drew the group back towards their signature reverb-drenched guitars, but that first concept seeped into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material,” Halstead says. “We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” The convergence of five unique characters has made the sound. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”
The group’s projected studio sessions for everything is alive, in April 2020, were naturally scrapped, and when the group finally did meet up, six months later, at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded, the mood was jubilant. (Finally, they had a proper reason to leave the house.) That was the beginning of a multi-year recording process, which moved from Oxfordshire and into the Wolds of Lincolnshire and back to Neil’s own Cornish studio before extending into February 2022, when the band brought in mixer Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, SZA, Alvvays) to mix six of the record’s eight tracks.
Owing to their deep history, there’s a palpable familial energy to Slowdive in 2023. everything is alive is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Those crossroads are reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of Slowdive’s music; everything is alive is heavy with experience, but each note is poised, wise, and necessarily pitched to hope. Its unique alchemy subtly embodies both sadness and gratitude, groundedness and uplift. Reflecting on “kisses,” which may be Slowdive’s surest pop moment yet, Halstead said, “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful.”
everything is alive, is exactly what the title suggests: an exploration into the shimmering nature of life and the universal touch points within it. Spanning psychedelic soundscapes, pulsating 80’s electronic elements and John Cale inspired journeys, the album lands immediately as something made for the future; which figures, as their fanbase has grown younger and younger as time has gone on, and their influence on forward thinking musical artists continues to prevail.
For a genre that is often thought of as divisive, and often warrants introspection, here Slowdive show their craft as the masters of it by pushing it outwards, beyond the singular; the end result being a record which feels as emotional and cathartic as it is optimistic.
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