Shoegaze band DIIV live at the Buckhead Theatre put on a great performance. Our founder and editor relays the experience of seeing one of his favorite bands.

DIIV burst onto the scene with their 2012 album Oshun, and the four-piece have released three albums following that auspicious debut: 2015’s Is The Is Are, 2019’s Deceiver and 2024’s Frog In Boiling Water.

The group’s most recent album is among the best albums of 2024 so far, as they take their hard-hitting shoegaze sound (which debuted in the 1980s, like these Moody Blues classic tracks) and tack on even more interesting sonic elements and underscore the group’s truly inventive devotion to melody above all else – despite wave after wave of intriguing guitar tones.

DIIV’s first album came out in 2012, and the group has grown considerably since then

On July 25, DIIV visited Decatur, Georgia’s Buckhead Theatre and put on a tremendous show in what must be one of the most beautiful theaters in Georgia. After the dual openers Fully Body 2 and Horse Jumper of Love warmed the crowd up sufficiently, DIIV came out and opened their set up with “In Amber,” the opening track from FiBW.

That grungy and engaging track then led into one of the group’s catchiest numbers: “Like Before You Were Born” from Deceiver. This track was clearly well received by the audience as its anthemic chorus and crunching guitar part shined through clearly with many audience members singing along.

The third track in a live setlist is usually where groups like to truly bring the heat. By that point, they’ve usually settled into the performance and begin to flesh out the show with unexpected flourishes and muscular musicianship. This was certainly the case with DIIV, as they launched into their first single from FiBW: “Brown Paper Bag.”

This track also saw a strong reaction from the audience, and its outro – which features perhaps the most shoegaze-y sounding guitar part the group has ever recorded, which is saying a lot – brought the house down as searing, distorted guitar parts piled up on one another until the group and the entire audience was enveloped in a volcanic cocoon of noise. Spellbinding.

Beyond the band’s music and performance, both of which were sublime on the night, DIIV employed a huge projector behind them, which played multiple satirical infomercials and parodies of educational films that shone a light on the insidious effects of consumerism and capitalism on every avenue of our existence.

At one point, the group played a fake video of themselves endorsing ExxonMobil, one of the most powerful and frequently most virulent corporations in the world. They also had a section in which they claim they would endorse and sponsor you or your company no matter what – as long as the price was right.

Beyond that, at one point the group stood aside and knelt so that the entire audience could watch a short film about Atlanta’s controversial “cop city,” which is slated to be built on the most expansive green space in the city and would be one of the largest militarized police training centers in the country.

Due to police officers’ frequent mistreatment of citizens and excessive use of force across multiple infamous (and often deadly) encounters, this establishment faces wide opposition within the state and beyond. Clearly, DIIV agree, as while this short clip played the audio underneath was a repeated, robotic mantra saying: “stop cop city.”

Getting back to the music, DIIV’s setlist was similar to the few shows that prefaced this one, with some notable changes. “Raining On Your Pillow,” the third track from FiBW, had normally been included late in the normal set, but at the Buckhead Theatre the group opted to include it in their encore – which was a masterstroke, as its swirling intersection of jangly, clean guitar arpeggios with a syrupy distorted lead tone made for a memorable penultimate track.

Before that track, however, the encore kicked off with an older song that the group’s lead singer Zachary Cole Smith stated they had “not played in a long time.” It was “Sometime,” a memorable number from the group’s debut album. It was a wonderful surprise, and it sent a charge through the venue when its first few notes were played.

DIIV live at the Buckhead Theatre, which was a beautiful venue, delivered their trademark brand of muscular shoegaze music, but the hallmark of the group is truly its melodies. While the band’s lyrics can often be hard to decipher – due to being mixed slightly lower than the guitars on their albums – the melodies Smith and the band are singing are gorgeous, ethereal and powerful.

All of those attributes shone through in what was truly a brilliant performance from start to finish from DIIV at Buckhead Theatre.

^{Header Photo Credit Shervin Lainez, edited by Random Fandom}