Slowdive at In the Meadows review: Forget Oasis, this sonic supernova is the perfect 1990s comeback
In the Meadows, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin
★★★★★
Band reunions are in the headlines again ahead of this summer's return of Oasis – coming to a stadium near you at a premium price. But the Gallagher brothers will be doing well to have a comeback one-fifth as glorious as that of
Slowdive
, the early 1990s alternative pop underdogs whose reunion several years ago has seen them break out of their chrysalis and spread their wings gloriously.
That victory lap ticks off its latest milestone at the
In The Meadows festival
in Dublin, where their headlining slot on the tented second stage is a wondrous serving of balmy space-pop.
Back in the 1990s, the band – from the Thames Valley outside London – were derided by the then-mighty rock press for their lack of rock'n'roll swagger and all-round sense of artful dreaminess. Their unassuming, psychedelic music saw them lumped alongside Dublin's My Bloody Valentine as pioneers of a sound called 'shoegaze' – sniffed at in the moment yet hugely influential over the decades.
Slowdive performed at the In The Meadows festival, at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, at the weekend. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
First time around, the band never played in Ireland. They are now making up for lost time. In The Meadows is the third Irish show in under two years. Amidst the occasional rain shower and gathering twilight, it is a palate-clearing panacea, beginning with sonic supernova Shanty from their 2023 album, Everything Is Alive.
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Slowdive are a five-piece, but the focus is on singers Rachel Goswell (later seen up on the grass slope grooving to festival headliner Iggy Pop) and Neil Halstead. Their voices have a mutually complementary, hazy quality and are well paired with the vast weather fronts of guitar, particularly on 1990s tracks such as Catch the Breeze and Souvlaki Space Station.
Accompanied by a gently blistering light show, their set is beautifully overwhelming. Surreal, too, if you were that one audience member up front trying to get lost in the band's haunting soundscapes whilst also following, in real-time, the Cork-Limerick penalty shoot-out in the Munster Hurling Final.
They finish with the gorgeous assault of Golden Hair – originally by lost Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett and accompanied by a video projection of his scowling, puzzled face. But there is another surprise as the music rises to an ear-splitting sob and the face of Carry On star Sid James fills the screen – a glint of humour mixed with the emotion-melting spectacle.
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