I’ve been waiting over 3 years to see DIIV again. They made a huge impression as a support act and their ‘Oshin’ LP has been a constant on my turntable since. Could they live up to my expectations……..

Ulrica Spacek‘s set sounded great – the kind of Krautrock bass and pounding drums I love. Using the same (bright blue) guitar lick to connect songs was a neat trick & I would happily see these guys again – have a listen here.

DIIV have had some flack in the press for their live performances with a particularly brutal review in this weeks guardian. So when they came on, complained that there was no sound in their monitors and walked off….twice…you had the feeling they may not come back…. “We spent 3 hours soundchecking for this?!”

Eventually they did play, but the sound wasn’t great (a mystery as the support had been). Frontman Zack was clearly distressed by it all, often with his hands on his head in despair, or over his ears trying to hear himself sing. “Please don’t load any of this onto YouTube” “e-mail me and I’ll do anything I can to make it up to you”. Andrew Bailey (with his bright green guitar) jumped around seemingly oblivious, which inserted some energy that the crowd responded to (“Thank you for your positivity”) but there was no escaping the below par sound…….a real shame.