DIIV - Leeds Belgrave Music Hall, March 22nd 2016


"...Halfway through the set Cole simply stops playing mid-song as he clutches his head turning away from the crowd. A few awkward moments later he turns back wiping away his tears. ‘This is so embarrassing,” he tells the crowd. From this point on and for the rest of the set he barely faces the crowd again..."


Seeing Diiv live was met with a certain level of intrigue as I wondered through the doors of The Belgrave Music Hall to an already packed out room. This is a band that never seem too far away from controversy. With Zachary Cole’s heavily publicized drug problems, Devin Ruben Perez dubious on-line comments and Colby Hewitt dismissal having all hit the alternative press headlines.

Before Diiv’s set I managed to catch main support Ulrika Spacek. Songs from their new record on Tough Love have been getting a few plays on BBC6Music of late, raising their profile enough to draw the crowds in early. Their garagey, psychedelic sound is loud and their confident presence even turns the heads of those only half watching to grab their full attention.

Ulrika Spacek
The controversy that preludes Diiv doesn’t take long to come into effect this evening. As the band set up, their seems to be technical issues as Cole repeatedly tells their sound technician he can’t hear anything in his monitors. The band leave the stage and the crew try to work out what’s going wrong. After ten minutes or so the lights go down, Diiv walk back on stage and are ready to go, the crowd cheers, yet Cole still isn’t happy and once again orders the band off stage. The crowd starts to get restless and after more fiddling around guitarist Andrew Bailey enters the stage to check the monitors before giving the thumbs up to which everyone else joins him. Cole’s still not happy, but by this point it’s too late, the band need to do something and as Bailey rips into (Druun Pt. II) Cole’s face bears the expression of total dissatisfaction with the situation. “This venue is fucking amateur hour!” he exclaims.

Diiv
As the band rattle through Is The Is Are and Human, Cole desperately clutches his ears to try and hear something, anything, but this seems to be to no avail. Cole repeatedly apologies for the sound while the crowd of young enthusiastic kids try and tell him it’s ok and to carry on. These words of encouragement seem to be falling on deaf ears. Cole cuts the figure of someone totally deflated by the situation while drummer Ben Newman is keeping the tempo to a blistering pace, making songs like Follow almost unrecognizable. It’s almost like he’s thinking ‘the faster I can drum these songs the sooner we can get this over with.’

Diiv
Halfway through the set Cole simply stops playing mid-song as he clutches his head turning away from the crowd. A few awkward moments later he turns back wiping away his tears. ‘This is so embarrassing,” he tells the crowd. From this point on and for the rest of the set he barely faces the crowd again, only to further complain and apologize. While the rest of the band try to remain enthusiastic Cole’s self-deprecating attitude turns from one gaining some initial pity to one growing old. People groan, as the apologies get tiresome. “Just shut up and play!” one person behind me shouts. Others echo the sentiment around me. The set ends with Doused a classic Diiv ‘hit’ which induces kids stage diving and some revitalized enthusiasm from those at the front. Then it’s over. 

As I join friends downstairs we discuss the events and all feel like the band played as tight as they could under the circumstances, though the front of house sound wasn’t great. The real shame was that the whole gig was overshadowed by the unfortunate events and Cole’s insistence in complaining rather than simply powering through like a pro, or like an adult at the very least. Five days later the rest of Diiv’s European tour is cancelled ‘due to urgent health issue’…. the controversy continues...

Words & photo's - Robin Chamberlain

*As part of this review we tried to get a statement from Diiv to hear their account of the gig and what went wrong. As of the date of this article, we have heard nothing back.

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6 comments:

  1. Unknown6 April 2016 at 22:44

    This review is garbage and should be removed. The longer it stays up the longer you're embarrassing yourself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plus One Magazine7 April 2016 at 07:29

      Would you care to elaborate on this then Chris and say why it is garbage?

      Delete
    2. Scott Samson7 April 2016 at 08:01

      I was there and this is a pretty accurate summary of what happened. Why is the review garbage?

      You don't even know, your from Tennessee!

      Delete
    3. Unknown12 April 2016 at 03:12

      Even from Tennessee I can see this is garbage. I elaborated on this in the comment thread of the post by the author from the Shoegaze, Dream Pop, & Nugaze group on Facebook. It looks like the entire post was deleted though. Someone who already didn't seem to like the group to begin with goes to one concert by them, during which multiple issues arose. Many of these issues being technical, the show obviously was doomed from the beginning. Diiv is a new band with their own personal problems as well. Surely this doesn't warrant a complete dismissal by the author, nor does it warrant a review highlighting the bands pissy behavior on a really bad day/night. Saying things like "The real shame was that the whole gig was overshadowed by the unfortunate events and Cole’s insistence in complaining rather than simply powering through like a pro" because obviously Cole isn't a pro yet. So what is the point of this review? To allow the author to vent about a show where neither the sound techs nor the band, nor even the crowd responded to the situation in the best way possible? This sort of crap should be reserved for personal blogs/vlogs/whatever, not an online magazine where people might read about this band and start to dismiss them for one guy's point of view from a really shitty night.

      p.s. - I should also mention the original Facebook post of this review was prefaced with the author's true opinion of the band, which was extremely negative to say the least. Not only did this make him seem just as unprofessional as he accused the band of being, but he managed to throw in the title "torchbearers of modern shoegaze" or some nonsense. Not only is this bad/lazy journalism but it makes him seem completely clueless about the genre on a whole.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous12 April 2016 at 10:00

      It wasn't a technical problem. All the monitors were working, I was there. They're just terrible live! You're just some butt hurt kid who's whining because you refuse to believe that they might just be shite.

      Delete
  2. Plus One Magazine14 April 2016 at 16:27

    The point of the review (like every other) is to write about EXACTLY what was witnessed on the night. Yes, he did go to ONE concert by the band,(we don't send our writers on tour to get multiple examples I'm afraid!) and thus the results/information are from this particularly difficult night for the band. Sadly (for you) we obviously want people to read the opinions of our writers, and I'm sure the majority will make their own minds up on this band upon hearing and/or seeing them. Bands have bad nights, get over it. Sometimes (as much as we all have our own deep loves for a particular band) it can just be a poor show. The point of this review as said was to report back from the night, at the venue, about the band and their set. He did just that. Perhaps we'll have them back here again soon and I'm sure as hell he will go along to review it for us and who knows, the show might run like a dream. Then again, it might not. Life.

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