
19 July 2023 – The Princess Theatre, Brisbane – words & pictures by Bec Harbour
It was only a short delay with illness postponing Slowdive’s return to Australia. Originally slated to appear with Modest Mouse at the Daydream mini-festival earlier this year, fans queued down the block outside the Princess Theatre to catch their headline show in Brisbane.
Local songstress Lucy Francesca Dron was the support act for the evening and a really great start to the evening. The crowd were familiar, calling out that they loved her, and were very appreciative of her work. Dron’s style of jazz infused, indie-pop had an element of etherealness that really set the mood for what was to come.



Lucy Francesca Dron – The Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
The sound of Brian Eno’s ‘Deep Blue Day’ (this song is probably best known as the soundtrack to that toilet scene in Trainspotting) signalled the start of the Slowdive set. After a few excited noises from the crowd, they settled down to a hushed anticipation while the band took up their positions on stage. Kicking off the set with ‘Slomo’ from their self-titled album from 2017, they had the crowd in their pockets. Then into ‘Slowdive’ (their self-titled song) and morphing into ‘Avalyn’ and on through ‘Catch the Breeze’ and ‘Star Roving’.



Slowdive – The Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
Often shoe-horned into the shoe-gaze genre, like most bands that are in that genre, they are multi-faceted and the only real tie that binds them is the literal shoe-gazing of the guitarists and the layering of the tracking for effect. I was wondering how their studio sound was going to translate on-stage, especially for some of the songs from Souvlaki. ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ put that to the test and I was mesmerised – the sound that enveloped me was such an amazing thing to hear live.
Then the set moved on with ‘Crazy for You’, ‘Sugar for the Pill’ and ‘Alison’. The members of Slowdive while on the surface appearing like very self contained units on stage, are a band that communicates in nods and gestures and genuine smiles both for each other and out to the crowd. This low-key approach adds to the illusion of the ‘shoe-gaze mystique’ (only the two guitarists had their heads down).




Slowdive – The Princess Theatre – photos by Bec Harbour
‘When the Sun Hits’ is probably Slowdive’s biggest and best known song, with the opening notes playing, there was the most noise I’d heard from the audience all night, that quickly simmered down and they all floated off on the music again. They then played the first of two covers for the set, ‘Sleep’.
Considering that they are about to put an album out, I thought that the set would have a few more from the album. The only song from the new one was ‘kisses’, then a cover that they have been doing for years, Syd Barrett’s ‘Golden Hair’. And then that was it.
Slowdive returned to the stage to do ‘Dagger’ and ’40 Days’. Then just like it began, a Brian Eno recording signalled the end with ‘An Ending (Ascent)’.