DIIV – Vicar St – Live Review
by Killian Laher

DIIV – Vicar Street, Dublin – 14th March 2024
Speical guest – EFÉ

US rockers DIIV arrived in Dublin for their first Irish headline performance.  The gig was pretty much a guitarfest.  Light on chat or other interactions between songs, the band were there to flex their guitar skills primarily.  The new material provided some of the strongest songs of the night, with strong riffs on Brown Paper Bag, equal parts heavy and laid back, and Frog in Boiling Water seems to signpost a very shoegazey forthcoming album.  Never a band strong on vocals, Zac Smith’s voice was barely audible at times over the raging storm of Take Your Time and the anvil-heavy Taker.

There was a healthy dose of psychobabble on show with a strange, pseudo-religious film before the set, and this also featured heavily on the otherwise excellent Soul-net.  The band are clearly well-rehearsed, and songs were rendered flawlessly.  You were dying for them to cut loose and they did on Between TIdes and a very lively Blankenship.  The set finished off with more blistering guitar work on Acheron.  Heavy rocker Horsehead introduced the encore, where they squeezed in another new song before finishing with the sub U2-isms of Doused.  DIIV don’t reinvent the wheel but they do what they do well, hitting a fuzzy, rocking, sweet spot.  A terrific performance from a band who are getting better and better.

Setlist
Like Before You Were Born
Under the Sun
Brown Paper Bag
Take Your Time
Taker
Soul-net
Frog in Boiling Water
Air Conditioning
Incarnate Devil
In Amber
Between Tides
Blankenship
Acheron

Encore:
Horsehead
Raining on Your Pillow
Doused