Thanks to my awesome BFF and RRP LROB who bought me an early birthday present… a ticket to see Slowdive at Fortress Festival in Fort Worth! I was really excited to see them again after almost 25 years (I last saw them at Trees circa 1993 when they opened for Catherine Wheel). Since Slowdive is pretty much my favorite band ever, I was nearly sick from anxiety/anticipation… I seriously thought I might throw up; but when the show finally began I soon felt my self at ease and melting into the cacophony of swirling guitars and beats.
I was slightly disappointed with the sound engineering. I don’t think the engineers were prepared for this type of audio onslaught. Rachel Goswell’s vocals were too pronounced in many songs where they should have only barely peaked above the melodies, and some of the nuances of their unique style/technique seemed missing. I’ve never been a big fan of live shows (especially large outdoor festivals) to begin with, so I didn’t have extremely high expectations going in. I was there for the nostalgia and a few hopes for catharsis, which ultimately I did achieve. I’m so glad to have been present. [note: the only thing that would have been better is if LROB had been there with me… sigh.]
I took several photos but only got one video, posted here.
Before I posted that, I discovered that someone else recorded/posted this song also (who must have been standing directly to my left and slightly behind me–I’m actually in the far right edge of the video toward the end when he pans to the right). His is slightly better quality, less shaky, but I’m in a better position:
And I found this one. If you look closely you can see me up near the front… you can barely see the back of my head below and and slightly to the left of Christian Savill’s guitar headstock… I’m wearing red and white plaid:
And this video of Sugar for the Pill:
And this (terrible quality, can’t imagine what must have been wrong with his/her device, I include it here just for memory’s sake):
Last but not least, my photos (sorry, I don’t have the patience to give them all titles and captions, maybe I’ll do that another time!). All my photos are licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike NonCommercial. They’re just crappy iPhone photos and I’m not a professional.