When Domenic “Nicky” Palermo indicators onto Zoom from a visit Connecticut’s Mohegan Solar on line casino and resort, his fatigue is shortly audible. The Nothing frontman is taking a break in between unloading extra merch from the band’s latest tour run whereas concurrently making an attempt to shepherd the biggest version but of Slide Away, the steadily rising pageant he by accident — and considerably improbably — was one in every of underground rock’s most significant annual gatherings.
“I dare say I bit off a bit bit greater than I can chew,” the bearded Palermo says with fun.
That could be true on paper. This 12 months’s Slide Away sprawls throughout six exhibits in three cities — Brooklyn Paramount on Friday and Saturday (Might 15-16), Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom on Might 22-23 and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Palladium on Might 29-30 — with roughly 20,000 tickets offered in whole. Nothing will carry out in any respect three stops in help of its deeply private new album, A Quick Historical past of Decay, launched in February. However the true draw is Palermo’s more and more uncanny means to coax beloved, elusive various bands again onto the stage — most notably this 12 months’s reunions from Hum and Chapterhouse.
For Palermo, the entire thing began as a correction to one thing he felt was lacking excess of from any enterprise intuition. “Every thing I’ve achieved my complete life has stemmed from a DIY place,” he says. “When Nothing began taking part in, we struggled with not having a real identification and never having a house. So for me, it was like, okay, there’s all these bands touching the identical reside wire proper now — dream pop, ambient music, shoegaze, no matter you need to name it — however there wasn’t actually a pageant the place you may discover all of that underneath one roof.” He pauses earlier than including, “I don’t even actually like saying shoegaze anymore. The time period’s gotten virtually embarrassing.”
Nonetheless, Slide Away has change into shorthand for a broader phenomenon: audiences of assorted youth each discovering and revitalizing a constellation of underground guitar music as soon as thought of too area of interest, introverted or forgotten to maintain giant crowds. TikTok clips and algorithmic playlists might assist lead children towards Hum, Failure, Swervedriver or Lovesliescrushing, however Slide Away offers that discovery bodily kind — a real-world counterpoint to more and more homogenized company pageant tradition.
Palermo calls it an “anti-festival pageant. We all know what sucks,” he says, referencing Nothing’s decade-plus existence on the touring circuit. “Not having merch charges is one factor we demand. We simply need folks to have expertise. I’ve all the time type of favored making folks comfortable within the sense of placing on a present.”
The lineup displays that philosophy. Returning heroes Hum and Chapterhouse share payments with youthful artists like She’s Inexperienced, Warmachine, Crate, Mexico’s Mint Area, Brazil’s Terraplana and Complete Spouse, whereas well-traveled friends corresponding to Ovlov assist bridge the generational divide. Palermo is intentional about these combos, fastidiously curating every evening moderately than merely stacking names. “I attempt to play off the headliner and lean the undercard in a route that is smart,” he explains. “There’s so many youthful bands I’m enthusiastic about getting on these levels.”
However Slide Away’s popularity has largely been constructed on the acts Palermo by some means convinces to return. The primary 12 months, he tracked down Scott Cortez of Lovesliescrushing and Astrobrite by way of Bandcamp messages. Final 12 months introduced Whirr out of a decade-long hiatus alongside Pains of Being Pure at Coronary heart. This 12 months’s crown jewels are Hum and Chapterhouse — each bands Palermo spent years pursuing by means of what he jokingly describes as “previous head Hotmail accounts.”
“Once I see an AOL or Hotmail deal with, I’m like, alright, this dialog’s gonna be powerful,” he says, laughing. “I’m just a few dude popping out of the blue.”
Hum’s inclusion carries specific emotional weight. After breaking a 17-year touring hiatus in 2015, the Illinois band has not performed for the reason that loss of life of drummer Bryan St. Pere in 2021 and has remained largely silent publicly within the years since. Its sudden 2020 comeback album, Inlet, arrived in the course of the early pandemic interval and remodeled from shock launch into one thing nearer to canon — a towering, late-career assertion many followers now contemplate the band’s finest work.
Palermo says guitarist/vocalist Matt Talbott initially wasn’t satisfied folks cared. “Matt was very involved that folks didn’t care about Inlet in any respect,” Palermo remembers. “And I needed to inform him, no, they completely do. Individuals are dying to listen to these songs.” Hum will once more characteristic Shiner drummer Jason Gerken behind the package, following his earlier appearances with the band previous to St. Pere’s loss of life.
Then there’s Studying, England’s, Chapterhouse, whose shimmering 1991 album Whirlpool turned foundational textual content for generations of atmospheric guitar bands regardless of the group spending many years largely absent from American levels. “No Chapterhouse, no Nothing,” Palermo says bluntly. “These data are extremely vital to me. I all the time beloved the Manchester and breakbeat facet of that scene. Chapterhouse made such cool music that no person else was actually making.”
Their inclusion additionally underscores the broader timing of Slide Away’s rise. Palermo remembers seeing many of those similar bands try reunions within the 2000s to sparse crowds and indifference. “Individuals weren’t there but,” he says. “This new technology type of pushed it ahead once more.”
That generational shift often is the pageant’s most fascinating dimension. What as soon as felt like insular cult music has change into newly communal. Palermo remembers looking throughout Lovesliescrushing’s Philadelphia set on the first Slide Away and seeing tons of of youthful followers fully locked in. “No person had their telephones out,” he says. “Everybody was simply current. That was a kind of moments the place I ended and thought, okay, that is truly one thing particular.”
On the similar time, Palermo stays cautious of over-defining the pageant he created. “It will get labeled as a shoegaze fest as a result of that’s simple for folks to digest,” he says. “Nevertheless it’s clearly not simply that.” That openness extends to his ambitions for future editions. Although he’s been planning Slide Away 2027 for months already, he’s reluctant to call particular targets — even when he admits his dream bookings stretch past strict style confines. At one level, he enthusiastically endorses SPIN’s thought of reuniting the Sundays, who haven’t carried out reside since 1997.
“You probably have an creativeness, you’ll be able to type of see the place I’m going with some of these things,” he says. It’s loopy to consider. Now I’m competing with large festivals, however we’re constructing one thing yearly. Individuals belief it now.”
