Swervedriver/Slow Fiction @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 8/29/26

 

Bill: Swervedriver/Slow Fiction/The Still Out

Venue: Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N 6 St., Brooklyn, NY

Date: Saturday 8/29/26

Ticket: $31 (resale via AXS, Door $40)

9:45pm Swervedriver: Raise at 35

Active: 1989 (Oxford, UK)

Latest Release: Raise: Demos (Outer Battery, out 10/3/26), "Flawed" (554874 Records, 2026),  Future Ruins (Rock Action, 2019)

Featured Release: Raise (A&M, 1991), Mezcal Head (A&M, 1993)

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8:45 Slow Fiction

Active: 2022 (New York, NY)

Latest Release: Dollhouse (Tight Knit, 2026)

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Missed: The Still Out

Adam Franklin has been about in NYC seemingly at least a couple decades, so I was wondering what Swevedriver constituted for band members nowadays since I first saw them all the way back when Raise came out at T.T. The Bears in Cambridge.  The Raise debut was featured this tour on it's 35th anniversary and Outer Battery is issuing the demos in October, and the band is seemingly teasing something new with it's digital single "Flawed" with the last album being from 2019.

So with Adam, long time guitarist Jimmy Hartridge and bass player Mick Quinn make up the original remaining core except Mick wasn't on bass, it was Ben Ellis.  Mikey Jones is now the drummer.  Since back when I saw the band in 1991, my recollection was "the guy in dreads or braids or something" and everyone else.  That I even know Adam Franklin's name at this point is a testament to him being around NYC a while.

With all things Creation having their day in the sun, why not revisit some of the best music to come out of that label and subgenre?  Raise was top tier, Mezal Head decidedly less so but with a song "Duel"  that hit it out of the ballpark despite the 'going down to the marketplace' climax seemingly being a nick from the 80's band UT.   But then it all make sense since original Swervedriver drummer Graham Bonner played previously for that band.

This music played tonight in it's current format meant the band played an hour and came back for another half hour that capped off with the aforementioned "Duel."  The current form sounded great, epic, layered, riff heavy and put all that nugaze bullshit in it's place.  After 35 years,  their time has come again.