Hum Plays First Set Since 2019, Debuts Inlet Cuts at Slide Away

Hum took a stage for the first time in seven years at Slide Away in Brooklyn on May 15. The Champaign, Illinois, group performed to a packed Brooklyn Paramount, folding three previously unplayed tracks from its 2020 album Inlet into the set. “Waves,” “Step Into You,” and a nearly 12-minute “Shapeshifter” all got their live debut that night.

The band is still widely known for the 1995 alternative rock single “Stars,” a moment that never quite translated into lasting mainstream attention for the two RCA albums that followed. Hum broke up in 2000. Inlet arrived quietly during the first pandemic summer and quickly connected with a new audience, pulling younger listeners into dense, heavy shoegaze that the old industry had once misread as derivative. Drummer Bryan St. Pere died in 2021. Shiner’s Jason Gerken now occupies the seat, and the set moved with a weight that felt earned rather than nostalgic.

From opener “Waves” onward, the floor turned into a circle pit and a steady stream of crowd-surfers. When frontman Matt Talbott fumbled the intro chords to “Stars,” the room sang the melody back loud enough to override the mistake. The crowd was visibly younger than a typical reunion show, a detail Talbott had doubted would materialize. Nothing’s Domenic Palermo, who runs Slide Away, told SPIN he had to convince Talbott that Inlet still mattered. “People are dying to hear these songs,” Palermo said. Talbott’s brief encore remarks were quiet, directing thanks toward the festival’s attempt to build something more DIY against the corporate festival circuit.

On Saturday the band reposted a fan’s account of the evening, one that pointed out the sheer number of young attendees singing every word. The post noted how the night felt like a revolving door, a testament to music that simply refused to age out.