DIIV / MAC DEMARCO

The Deaf Institute, Manchester | November 20th

Manchester’s Deaf Institute stands as one of the best venues the city has to offer. Three floors of stunning décor, cheery staff and a large ensemble of pints and cocktails ensure that its array of feverish events are always well worth their entry fees. Tonight the top floor was already completely swamped by groups of beer-swilling males by the time we arrived, establishing a distinctly merry environment – something which Mac DeMarco, Montreal’s answer to ‘The Dude’, only intensified when he took to the stage armed with many bottles of grog.

Jolly-faced and charismatic, Mac and his band undeniably brought up the mood of the whole room with their hilariously chilled-out attitude. From a well-timed dart for beers during the middle of a guitar solo, to an impromptu scat interlude as one member replaced a broken string, the band were utterly compelling in their antics. And their songs possessed just as much momentum: jangly tones and frequent guitar noodling provided a consistently strong collection of tunes taken largely from his widely-acclaimed album 2. The band ultimately climaxed with an unforgettably ridiculous medley segueing Metallica’s Enter Sandman, into The Beatles’ Blackbirds and The Police’s Message in a Bottle, leaving the stage to rapturous applause.

Headline act Diiv were in stark contrast to the laid-back tones of Mac and co., unleashing an aural behemoth within seconds of showing their faces through the moodily atmospheric light-show. There was no mercy in their ear-splitting set which took album Oshin, multiplied it by at least 100 and transformed it into a densely psychedelic shoegaze juggernaut. They played fast, occasionally taking a sudden rhythm shift into hyperspeed, but never tripping up in their relentless wig-out jams. The wave of sonic ecstasy didn’t subside until the band topped off their show with a strobe-afflicted finale, in what was quite possibly an attempt to ensure that, on this occasion, The Deaf Institute lived up to its debilitating title.

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Words: James Balmont