Photos by: Rachel Frank
If you were sitting at home recovering from a weekend bender or simply couching it and being boring on Monday night, then you messed up this time. The Casbah was the place to be once again, with an awesome evening of music from the NY indie rockers DIIV (pronounced ‘Dive’ like the Nirvana song…) and openers Kiki Pau and Chris Cohen.
Usually a latecomer to these weekday shows, some strange dark force possessed me to arrive on time and catch the first band for a change, and I was very pleasantly surprised. A four-piece psychedelic band from Finland, Kiki Pau kicked off the night with some delicately intertwined guitar melodies and hypnotic riffs driven forward by a steady rocking bass and drums. The venue was buzzing for their set, whether or not everyone was just trying to get in early for the main act I don’t know, but I got the feeling this band could come back some day soon and pack the house for a show of their own.
The second opener, Chris Cohen from Los Angeles, played in a three-piece band, but if you’re under 6 feet you probably didn’t notice from amongst the packed crowd that there was a keyboardist sneakily sitting down on the left, and a drummer/lead singer on the right. The music was gentle and laidback, and may have sent some of the crowd to sleep, or at least outside to go smoke a cigarette.
Luckily the main act definitely brought the energy back into the room, and before their first song was over DIIV had a nice little mosh pit going in the crowd. A few brave souls even tried their luck at crowd surfing despite the fact that there is barely 3ft in this venue between the tops of peoples’ heads and the popcorn ceiling… Their music was a wash of shoe-gazey guitars and reverberated vocals, with driving bass lines and drums that had the whole crowd dancing along. It was a great set overall – easy to get lost in and just let the music take control of your feet, and by the end of it the crowd was pretty demanding of an encore. All-in-all a great show and a perfect way to spend a Mondaynight.