LIVE REVIEW: SWERVEDRIVER – RAISE AT 35, WITH LONG DISTANCE RUNNER, AT THE VILLAGE UNDERGROUND, SHOREDITCH, LONDON

For a major change of scenery tonight, I ventured out to Shoreditch, to the Village Underground, a venue that was new to me, to see Swervedriver celebrating 35 years of their debut album, Raise. Having not played in the UK since before Covid, the band had clearly been missed, with the show selling out in just two hours. An extra date had been added the previous night, which I was told had also sold out.

With a capacity of around 700, it soon became apparent that a sell-out show at the Village Underground meant some difficulty moving around the venue. Actually, outside of the photography pit, moving at all became a bit of a challenge. Given that the average age of the crowd probably wasn’t far off my own, I could only hope that we were all sturdy enough to survive the evening.

First up were Long Distance Runner, a band who were new to me, and apparently relatively new to themselves, having been together for only around 18 months. This was the start of their first tour, following a number of successful shows around East London. An instrumental outfit, they had been compared to Mogwai and The Smiths (but without Morrissey, which can only be a good thing in my book). With three guitars – well, two guitars and a baritone guitar – alongside drums, they delivered a set of polished numbers with a heavily experimental, improvised feel. At times, it was as though they were floating through their own dreams.

With the stage heavily backlit, the band spent much of their set appearing as little more than shadows, adding to the beautifully hypnotic effect of their music. It was an impressive introduction, leaving me feeling that Long Distance Runner havexx plenty to offer going forward.

And so to the main event.

Some of the promotional photos of Swervedriver showed them as they were 35 years ago, but, like everyone else over that time (even me), they showed a few signs of the passing years when they took to the stage. Matured, I would say. But then they launched into Sci-Flyer, and time stood still for the next hour and a half. They turned back the clock far more effectively than the six years since their last UK visit might suggest, blasting us with a full-on set of Raise classics and reminding us all what it was like to be 25 again.

They roughed us up with Son of Mustang Ford and Rave Down, and never took their foot off the gas for the remainder of the first half, working their way faithfully through the album to Lead Me Where You Dare. It was a relentless run of shoegaze-tinged, guitar-driven noise, delivered with the sort of intensity that made the intervening decades seem utterly irrelevant.

Then came a well-earned breather, which the crowd probably needed just as much as the band. Between the volume, the heat and the difficulty of moving anywhere, we were certainly being put through our paces.

Just as we had recovered our hearing, the second half kicked off with a departure from Raise, but certainly no let-up in energy, as Juggernaut Rides got things moving again. Cue an aggressive display of spaced-out projections across the far wall of the venue, accompanied by further destruction of our eardrums. It was a suitably overwhelming assault on the senses, before the band brought proceedings to a mighty close with Never Lose That Feeling, followed by an epic Duel.

After 35 years, Raise clearly hadn’t lost any of its power, and Swervedriver showed that the songs were every bit as potent as ever. It was a fantastic night, a welcome return to UK stages, and a reminder that some things really do get better with age.

Awesome to see them back!