REVIEW: Slater @ Warehouse on Watts
WRITTEN BY: Maya Sade Eberlin
PHOTOS BY: Maya Sade Eberlin
Tucked away just south of Broad and Girard, lies Warehouse on Watts (WOW), a unique event space hosting a variety of music-based events weekly. On Wednesday, October 8, 2025, the venue was darkened: the gender-neutral bathrooms, covered in stickers and Sharpie scrawlings, were illuminated only by red LEDs. WOW was crawling with 20-somethings in low-rise jeans, abuzz with excitement for Slater’s long-awaited tour promoting his most recent record, ESI 2.
The opener for the night was Sipper, a NYC-native experimental indie pop solo act, who took the stage just after 8:00 p.m., armed with a microphone and a MacBook full of backing tracks to prime the audience. He played a twenty-minute set in which he spoke openly with crowd members at various points. He took requests, seemed to cut songs short, and was frank with showgoers– at one point, he played a bit of one song and quickly cut it, explaining, “Sorry, I really don’t like that one.”
Sipper was sarcastic, poking fun at the crowd and making self-depreciating comments about the set. Someone in the back of the room requested a song, and as the track’s lead-in played, he walked through the audience to find the culprit: “if you’re going to request a song, you better know the words.”
Despite the varying crowd reception to his stage presence, Sipper’s set was enjoyable, featuring tracks like “sid” about the eponymous character from popular British television drama Skins, “drop”, a starkly vulnerable piece with notable cloud rap influence, as well as the sad-boy indie pop tune “Fuck June”, upon request. The beats stood out, and his quiet, muffled vocals accompanied by the occasional high-pitched singsong chorus, made for a memorable opening act.
Soon after Sipper’s departure, the venue went dark as Slater swaggered onto the stage, all leather jacket and flared jeans under his signature pin-straight, shoulder-length hair. His tank top rode up just enough to expose his belt– solid black in the front, with tiny studs along the back spelling out IN GOD WE TRUST.
The lights went up as Slater launched into the first track of the night, looking coolly over the crowd through dark sunglasses. Mellow, hip-hop-infused surf-rock beats filled the room, and his quiet vocals and suave movements brought the tracks to life.
Alongside the expected ESI 2 tracks like “So Much Blood”, “No Mas”, and “A Party in Devin’s Room”, the crowd screamed along to fan-favorites such as “Dj’s Up in the Club” and “She Looked Just Like A Doll”. Slater’s stage presence was effortlessly magnetic; he played electric guitar over various songs, making sure to give equal attention to every side of the stage. At one point, he came down close to the audience, grabbing a couple of eagerly outstretched hands before effortlessly resuming his performance on the main stage.
Slater apologized to the audience several times throughout the show, sharing that he had recently lost his voice. Despite this, his vocals were never noticeably strained– if anything, his performance was doubly impressive.
Towards the end of his 45-minute set, he said, “I only have a couple of songs left, sadly, it’s all my voice can handle.” Crowd members cheered in response and screamed along to his final songs, starting with the smooth experimental “I’ll Put It on Metal” and closing out with “Trix”, his most popular song. Since “Trix” was released as a collaboration with Enjoy, Wyatt Shears of The Garden’s solo project, Slater let the audience sing Shears’ verse of the upbeat track, joining back in for the final chorus.
The ESI 2 World Tour is set to continue through Nov. 17, 2025, with the final 11 dates taking him through Europe.
