Cloakroom headlines opening night show of Shoegaze Shoestravaganza Slide Away Fest

Slide Away Festival kicked off on Friday in New York City at Bushwick’s own Market Hotel. The jam-packed night of music had six bands on the bill, headlined by midwestern shoegaze powerhouse Cloakroom. The festival is the child of fellow shoegaze band Nothing, whose ubiquitous member Domenic “Nicky” Palermo could be seen running around the festival venue with a camcorder, looking like a kid at a carnival.

Western Haikus started the show off and were followed quickly by Magic America. The show was all done very quickly. All night, the efficiency of the festival was off the charts. There was one pathway to the stage that doubled as the photo pit and was shared by all the band members and everyone capturing media. It was sectioned off from the pit by two ribbon stanchions and the respect of the patrons. What allowed the show to run so smoothly was a mutual and unspoken respect and agreement by almost everyone in the venue to honour the layout and to allow people to move around without being in the way. Fans stayed out of the photo pit, media stayed out of the way of the bands, and the bands loaded in and out with expertise. Exceptional vibe added to by fans, venue staff, media members, and bands alike.

High. began their set as the room began to fill out and the sun began to set. This is a magical time at Market Hotel as its still early enough in the night that the window facing the raised subway platform opposite hasn’t fogged over with breathy condensation yet and there’s just the right amount of light from the setting sun to watch the trains come and go behind the band rocking out before you. High. is a four-piece loud, noisy, upset, and effect-sodden (all said with utmost adoration) -gaze band from New Jersey. Bridget Bakie, the band’s bassist, is the focal point of their live show, swaying centre stage as she keeps the rhythm. Jack Miller made up the other half of the rhythm section and sat backdropped by the venue’s iconic window view.

Christian Castan, the band’s lead singer holding down stage right, looked like he just finished a Brian Jonestown show but sang and played like his own evolution of the inspired frontman. Danny Zavala, Stage left standing lead guitarist, played a truly electric lead while keeping his guitar anywhere beside slung comfortably across his body. The music was emotional with a whine to the lyrics and a huge full band crescendo to every song. The crowd was well packed for their show, and heads dipped and bodies swayed to the emotional drive of the music, but true dancing was limited all night.

Luster followed and brought a more ethereal vibe to the room. The music had a huge emphasis on effects and feedback, creating an incredible live soundscape. The band has a deep roster with three guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, and also featured a guest vocalist for a track, Whirr member Loren Rivera. Rivera cast a spell on the room, his soft vocals seeming to enchant the band and the fans to bring it extra hard. The set melted together, seeming like a long, slightly broken-up jam to somewhere. The final track gave a southern California desert burnout to end the set, and it was absolutely killer. Heat seemed to radiate off the musicians like the California sun.

Knifeplay was the penultimate act of the night and once again proved the variety of the shoegaze genre by introducing a new style and sound to the night. The music was a rich and complex mix of sounds with a very heavy core contrasted with falsetto vocals, an acoustic guitar, and a lead guitar played primarily with a slide.

The stage felt like a clown car as band members popped out of every corner. The sextet struggled to find feng shui on stage as the keyboardist was hidden against the wall, edged over by the front row of the three guitarists and vocalists, while the bassist and drummer swam in extra space behind the wall of strings. The front row played with an incredible amount of camaraderie and seemed at moments that they could be siblings. They slowed it down for one song and dropped to one guitar and two vocal harmonies that both parties mostly nailed. They ended their set on a very emotional note, and you felt it as the lights came up and the music stopped. Like you got caught reading someone else’s journal.

Cloakroom closed out the night, and as their pre-set turnover went on, it became quickly clear how much this night was about them. The room, which until this point had been a good crowd, was now solidly packed. The other bands piled in along the walls to watch, and the media area filled with friends and plus ones. This is the best part of the night as all pretence fades away and we all become just fans of the band.

The evening’s perfect flow paid dividends at this point in the night as I overheard one band member say to the other, “we’re 10 minutes ahead,” and instead of waiting, they added their extra time to the set, fixing a common city festival issue of limited set times for packed bills. The band roared into “The Pilot,” the opening track off their most recent album Last Leg of the Human Table. They mixed new tracks in with old tracks and were cooking all night long. The room came to life for the set, and the band responded with good energy. The lack of dancing in the room was the only limiting factor which could have helped lift the show to the next level. Cloakroom brought the energy for their entire set and is a must-see show if they are coming to a venue near you.

Slide Away’s opening night was a huge success, and the venue rose to the occasion in mighty form. Market Hotel, a nightclub in the minds of many, transformed into the perfect concert venue for a festival of this kind. Organisers and band members worked seamlessly together to offer good vibes, good merch, and good music.