SLOWSILVER GENERAL GLAIVE PLAYS TWO SOLD OUT SHOWS IN TORONTO

This past week Toronto, Canada welcomed back Glaive at The Velvet Underground for two sold out shows on his “May It Never Falter” tour. On both nights, he filled the venue to the brim with wall to wall crowds of returning fans and new fans alike, all ready to experience this new era.

Boldly, Glaive did not have an opener for the North American leg of his tour, opting to instead broadcast his own DJ ‘party mix’ throughout the venue's speakers. The set contained fan favourites such as Call Me Maybe and Clarity sprinkled with a bit of Slowsilver03 flair, which got the crowd singing before the singer even stepped foot on the stage. As the last mix faded out, the crowd began to hear the rising intro to ‘For God And Country’. Visuals of projected birds flooded the front of the venue, as Glaive finally ran onto stage, to both his music and cheers of the crowd.

Monday’s show (January 27th), seemed initially shy with their singing, but Wednesday (January 29th) kicked things off loudly, with the shouts from the crowd being nearly as loud as Glaive's vocals. With a crested flag blowing on screen behind him, Glaive continued to follow album order with ‘60.000 ISK’ and ‘Count It Up’ being up next. The crowd began slowly easing into the energy of the night and started to get up off their feet, nearly hitting the roof with how high they were jumping. Recognizing Night 2’s dedication for being a full force crowd, Glaive offered a short “fuck yeah baby” in gratitude.

Approaching the edge of the stage, reaching out to fans like a modern day Jesus, Glaive slowed down the pace with ‘ik’, giving fans an opportunity to catch their breath before picking up the pace again with ‘Live and Direct’. Even though additional artist Kurtains, who is on the track, was not present in the venue, the fans made up for his absence even before the song started, with a chorus of synchronized “hey!”s ringing out before passionately springing into the song, enunciating every lyric, even the more vulgar ones. With the lights going dark across the venue, Glaive announced “It's ‘Nobody's Fault / Accept My Own’” before the projector kicked back in, with a hard bass banging against the walls. ‘Nobody's Fault / Accept My Own’ is just as powerful and insane on stage as it is on the album, translating perfectly while still maintaining the necessary energy, and the “boing!” adlibs.

During Night 2, Glaive acknowledged Night 1’s energy by telling the crowd “I’m not just dicksucking when I say that was the best show of the whole tour, possibly the best tour of my entire life, so I’m trying to see y’all open the pit I’m trying to see y’all turn the fuck up!” before launching into the three track run of remixed versions of the early 2024 track ‘huh’ and the 2020 track ‘astrid’, alongside ‘Freudian’. The crowd did go wild with these tracks, with Night 1 having more organized pits while Night 2 simply bashed each other around like ping pong balls, with both being equally as enjoyable from a fans perspective. Toronto seemed to appease Glaive with their off the wall behaviour, as he went on to say “I respect that! I fuck with that!”

The following track, ‘pardon me’ was a cover by the artist ovine hall, who Glaive claims to be a fan of. In reality, ovine hall is Glaive under a pseudonym. Although the claim was made that why might not know the track, both crowds were loud, especially with the line “Told him, Meet up, bro, let’s fucking die”. Before moving into the remix of the older track ‘dnd’, Glaive transferred the reign of “best show” from night one to two, simply saying “So far, this might be the best show!”. The crowd who was in desperate need of another break got the opportunity during the ‘i wanna slam my head against the wall’ remix, which initially was a full fledged hyperpop track, but is now a softer and melodic, yet still very digital.

‘17250’ called for another chance to open the pit, but where the energy turned into a bit of a mad one was with ‘tijuana freestyle’, a gritty and violent track that called for uncoordinated mosh pits and aggressive flashing lights. Glaive then played his “proudest work in terms of remixes” ‘minnesota is a place that exists’, a track that not only got people bouncing, chanting, and dancing, but introduced crowd surfers into the mix. ‘as if’ kept up the exact same energy, with Glaive sealing the approval of the crowd with a “that was perfect”, sending the crowd into a fit of cheers.

The last three songs in the set progressively lower the energy, as they move away from hyper danceable tracks to ones that strike an emotional chord, digging more into personal themes. Glaive stayed on the main stage for both ‘living proof (that it hurts)’ and ‘Knock, Draw, Release’ before moving behind the on-stage curtain for ‘Joel’. Although you couldn’t see more than his silhouette, you could hear him clear as day, with the crowd simmering their shouting into harmonies, allowing Glaive's broken vocals to tug on everyone's heart strings. With the last of the guitar playing out, we got the final words of the night…

“Thank you so much, I’ve been Glaive.”

However, that was not where the show ended. After a short chanting of “encore” and “one more song”, the unaccompanied vocals of ‘EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY’ hit the crowd and in an instant, people got over their grief, and amped themselves back up for quite literally one of the perfect encore songs. Alongside this, Glaive gave Toronto the opportunity to hear not one, but two unreleased tracks off of his new, untitled album. On Monday, the crowd was given the opportunity to hear the dance track ‘We Don’t Leave The House’, which was played on other dates of tour. On Wednesday, Toronto was the first city to experience ‘Foreigner’, which Glaive and Jeff (whom he made the track with), consider to be the best off the album. Despite not knowing any of the words to either of the songs, Toronto turned up, offering jumping, pits, and a general enjoyment of both the unreleased tracks.

Finishing off the night was a reprise of ‘ik’ but remixed this time. The build up to the beat drop allowed time for the largest pits of the night to open. On Night One, there was one that ranged from wall to wall, and a separate smaller one by the front of the stage. The only thing separating the two pits from forming together was a wall of 4 people, who were each equally involved with their own circle. Night Two was equally as committed to forming the largest pit, touching wall to wall, from stage to soundboard, forming the largest circle possible in one of the smallest venues. People were spinning in the middle, showing off their dance moves, or waiting for the beat to drop so they could let out the last of their liveliness for the night.

Though the Toronto shows have ended, Glaive still has plenty of upcoming dates. To experience his 2025 tour for yourself, you can find the remaining dates on the tour poster alone, and grab tickets via Ticketmaster or Your Venues Website.