Noise Pop 2013: DIIV

NOISE POP 2013:

DIIV

BRICK AND MORTAR HALL, SF

02 MARCH, 2013

On the second of two sold-out nights at San Francisco's Brick and Mortar Hall, DIIV lived up to their billing, putting an exclamation point on the 21st edition of the Noise Pop Festival. Last time we caught up with DIIV, they had just crawled off a flight back from Europe and worked through a set opening for Wild Nothing in Santa Barbara that was rough, but gave ample evidence of what was to come. The LP Oshin was a mere template for the live sound, and the roughness of the show gave it energy.
With the Brick and Mortar gigs, DIIV as a headliner did nothing to duck the spotlight, embracing the challenge with a full band that's honed the enlarged sound into a battering force, including some new material for the hardcore. Leader Zachary Cole Smith displayed his usual kinked sense of humor, performing the first chunk of the show in a ski mask. Aside from new material, the highlight of the show was "Dowsed", prompting a frantic thrashing in the pit up front. All told, a nice sendoff to Austin (***) for DIIV, and a nice momentum builder for their upcoming round of high-profile opening gigs.

(***) In a series of posts on his Twitter feed, Zachary Cole Smith made his feelings on the whole SXSW scene abundantly clear:
DIIV (@DIIV): Hi Austin. Fuck SXSW. There... I said it. Here, the music comes last. 5 minute set-up, no sound check, 15 minute set. The "music" element...
...is all a front, it's the first thing to be compromised. Corporate money everywhere but in the hands of the artists, at what is really...
ust a glorified corporate networking party. Drunk corporate goons and other industry vampires and cocaine. Everyone is drunk...
..being cool. "Official" bureaucracy and all their mindless rules. Branding, branding, branding. It's bullshit... sorry. -Cole
For the record, i'm actually having a blast at SXSW