Guest review by Ali
DIIV (formerly known as Dive) is a relatively new indie rock band that just formed about a year ago. The Brooklyn-based band played to a pretty mellow crowd on Wednesday night at Rickshaw Stop, which is normally alive with dancing fans. Despite some sound trouble in the beginning of the show, the guys kept their cool and even showed their sense of humor by thanking the crowd for attending their sound check.
The guys of DIIV have a pretty unique instrumental sound, which combined with the echoing lyrics to give the band a chill vibe. Although the music is laid back, let’s call a spade a spade: the “mellow” crowd was actually pretty lame. Singer, Zachary Cole Smith, who’s also a member of Beach Fossils, even called the crowd out saying, “Can you guys dance or some shit?”
That semi woke everyone up and one can only respect the guys for continuing to rock out playing songs from their debut full-length album, Oshin, which was released in June. “Human Thinking” seemed to be a crowd favorite and they closed with “Doused,” which was awesome live and even got everyone moving around.
After DIIV, Los Angeles punk-garage band, Bleached took the stage. Remember the lame crowd? Well, either Bleached brought a new group into the venue between breaks or the alcohol finally started running through their veins. But I’m going to go on a limb and say it was front-woman Jennifer Clavin’s, who was just released from jail the night before. The song/jail-bird drove all the way to San Francisco from San Diego to rock out, and that got the crowd excited. Needless to say these, chicks are BAMFs. They have the attitude of grunge rocker-chicks and the crowd was digging it.
Coming from someone who was not too familiar with the band, I would say their beach garage sound would be comparable to a grungier Best Coast. The crowd loved them and some favorites were “Thinking of You” and “Electric Chair.” By the end of the show, the crowd was full on moshing as the girls closed with a Misfits cover song.
If you haven’t checked out the new-wave melodies f DIIV, or the punk-rockers of Bleached you should. Overall, both shows were fantastic.
1 Comment
Leave your reply.