If night one of Slideaway Festival felt like a wide-angle introduction to shoegaze’s past, present, and future, then night two felt like stepping back into the same world with a deeper sense of familiarity. The Hollywood Palladium once again became a pressure chamber of distortion and light, but this time the energy felt more immediate, as if the crowd already knew how to move inside the noise.

By the time the evening wrapped, the floor was packed wall to wall again, bodies pressed into every available inch of space. The same hypnotic visuals, towering volume, and immersive staging carried over from the previous night, but the difference was in how locked in the audience felt. There was no easing into it this time. The festival had already established its language, and night two spoke it fluently.

Terraplana opened the evening shortly after 6 p.m., easing early arrivals into the night with their blend of Brazilian shoegaze textures and ambient guitar work. Even for those still filtering into the venue, their set reinforced the festival’s international scope, expanding the genre’s reach beyond its more familiar geographic centers. The sound drifted through the room in slow layers, functioning less as a traditional opener and more as an atmospheric entry point.

Cryogeyser followed shortly after and immediately shifted the tone. The Los Angeles trio brought a sharper emotional edge to the early part of the evening, balancing distortion-heavy passages with moments of melodic restraint. Frontwoman Shawn Marom anchored the performance with grounded intensity, moving between controlled chaos and quieter vulnerability without breaking momentum. Midway through the set, the crowd broke into a spontaneous rendition of “Happy Birthday” for Marom’s mother, briefly softening the room before the volume returned in full force. It was a brief but memorable moment of levity within an otherwise immersive set.

Ovlov took the stage a little past 7:30 and once again turned the Palladium into controlled chaos. If night one had already established their presence, night two felt looser and more immediate, with the band leaning fully into the energy of a returning festival crowd. Crowd surfers appeared almost instantly, moving across a tightly packed floor as the band locked into a sound that blurred noise and melody in equal measure.

The visual presentation once again complemented the intensity on stage, with shifting washes of color and distorted imagery flickering behind the band. By the second night, Ovlov felt fully integrated into the festival’s rhythm, their set functioning as a release valve for the momentum that had been building since the early evening. The performance carried a sense of acceleration rather than introduction, pushing the night forward rather than simply setting it up.

Chapterhouse

Chapterhouse followed a little after 8:30 and were met with one of the most immediate and sustained reactions of the weekend. Their presence carried the same weight as the night before, but the familiarity of a second consecutive performance seemed to heighten the response. The band moved through a set that balanced essential tracks like “Treasure,” “Breather,” and “Pearl” with deeper cuts such as “Guilt,” giving the performance a slightly darker and more shifting emotional texture than night one.

Across both nights, Chapterhouse’s visual presentation remained one of the defining aesthetic elements of Slideaway. Abstract, dissolving imagery flickered behind them like degraded transmissions, gradually blending into the haze of sound until the distinction between image and music felt increasingly blurred. The crowd, already tightly packed by this point in the night, swayed in unison through the set, absorbed into a steady pull of layered guitars and sustained distortion. Rather than altering their approach from the previous night, the band deepened it, allowing subtle differences in pacing and song selection to reshape the atmosphere.

Nothing

Nothing followed a little past 9:30, offering a noticeable contrast to their night one performance. Instead of presenting Tired of Tomorrow in full, the band opted for a condensed and more varied set, opening with the title track before moving into a rare cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Devil Town.” From there, they threaded through “Vertigo Flowers,” “A.C.D.,” and “Eaten by Worms,” reshaping familiar material into a looser, less structured flow.

The shift in format gave the set a more unpredictable emotional arc. Rather than the linear weight of a full-album performance, night two emphasized contrast—softness against heaviness, restraint against release. The crowd remained fully engaged throughout, responding to the band’s ability to reframe their own material without losing its emotional core.

Hum

Hum arrived a little past 11 and closed out the festival’s second night with a sense of scale that matched and arguably exceeded their previous performance. Walking out to the sound of Escape from New York, the band was met with an immediate and sustained reaction that carried through the entirety of the set. As before, their visuals leaned into expansive natural and cosmic imagery, but in the context of a second night, the effect felt even more immersive, as though the room itself had expanded to accommodate them.

The set drew from across their catalog, moving through “The Summoning,” “The Pod,” “Little Dipper,” and “Iron Clad Lou,” before transitioning into “Green to Me,” “Folding,” and “Step Into You.” Each track carried significant weight, not through reinvention, but through accumulation—the result of two nights of shared anticipation and sonic immersion. By the time they reached “Cloud City” and “I Hate It Too,” the performance had fully locked into its final stretch, with no separation between audience and sound.

The encore of “Stars” and “In the Den” brought the weekend to its close, with “Stars” in particular drawing a reaction that blurred the line between performer and crowd. The moment felt less like a finale than a collective release, echoing the emotional peak of both nights. Though the setlist mirrored the previous evening, the impact felt heightened by repetition rather than diminished by it.

What defined the second night of Slideaway Festival was not change, but accumulation. Mostly the same artists, the same visual language, and the same sonic architecture were all present—but sharpened by familiarity and continuity. If night one built the framework, night two confirmed that everyone inside it knew exactly how to inhabit it.

Chapterhouse Setlist :

1. Treasure
2. Breather
3. Auto Sleeper
4. Falling Down
5. Come Heaven
6. In my arms
7. Mesmerise
8. Guilt
9. Greater Power
10. Pearl
11. Love Forever

Nothing Setlist:

1. Tired of tomorrow
2. Devil Town (Daniel Johnston song)
3. The Dead are dumb
4. Vertigo Flowers
5. A.C.D (Abscessive Compulsive Disorder)
6. Nineteen Ninety Heaven
7. Curse of the Sun
8. Eaten by Worms

Hum Setlist:

1. The Summoning
2. The Pod
3. Little Dipper
4. Iron Clad Lou
5. Green to Me
6. Folding
7. Afternoon with the Axolotls
8. Why I like the Robins
9. Step into you
10. Cloud City 
11. I hate it Too

Encore:

12. Stars
13. In the Den

Photo Credit: Owen Ela