Live concert photography of New Colossus Festival's Shoegaze and Psych Party at Arlene's Grocery back in 2022.

Live Concert Photography: New Colossus Festival 2022: Shoegaze and Pysch Party at Arlene’s Grocery 3/12/22 feat. Blushing with Zoon, Living Hour and Sunglaciers

Photographers often have a treasure trove of unedited and unpublished photos. I’m not an exception. Over the course of this site’s almost 14 year history, I’ve managed to amass a collection of unedited and unpublished photos on a number of dead and malfunctioning external hard drives, as well as some on working hard drives. With those malfunctioning drives, I’ve been lucky to have valuable files restored and placed on an entirely new external hard drive. And with some much-needed downtime, I will occasionally go through those archives, edit and post.

If you’ve been frequenting this site during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, you might recall that with all of that free time, and not much else to do, I went through a decade-long archive of photos. And with the close of 2023, I wanted to finish out an old hard drive. (Out with the old, in with the new, right?)

Back in March 2022, I covered the New Colossus Festival. Co-founded back in 2018 by three New York music industry vets and longtime friends, former Lorimer Beacon founder and head Mike Bell, Kanine Records‘ founder and label head Lio Kanine and Kepler Events ‘ and Dedstrange Records co-founder Steven Matrick, The New Colossus Festival over the course of the past couple of years has featured several hundred handpicked, emerging indie bands and artists from Canada, the UK, the European Union, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course, the US.

Since its founding, the festival has quickly established itself as the first stop in New York and in the US for a growing number of emerging and buzz worthy for a growing number of emerging and buzz worthy international artists. Notable festival alumni include a number of JOVM mainstays including GIFT, Penelope Isles, The Orielles, Thus Love, as well as Pom Poko, Pom Pom Squad, Sid Simons, Sobs, Water From Your Eyes, Peel Dream Magazine, Kiwi Jr., and a growing list of others.

During the 2022 edition’s fourth night, I made a number of stops across the Lower East Side, including a stop at Arlene’s Grocery for New Colossus Festival’s Shoegaze and Psych Party, which featured sets from Austin-based shoegazers Blushing, who played material from that year’s Possessions; acclaimed Hamilton, ON-based shoegazers Zoon, whose 2020 effort Bleached Wavves was shortlisted as a finalist for that year’s Polaris Music Prize; Winnipeg-based indie rockers Living Hour; and Calgary-based post punks Sunglaciers.