DIIV / Spring Kings @ Night & Day, 10 June

Opening for the headliners are Spring King, returning to Manchester shortly after their unjustly sparse show at Gullivers last month. With a rapid-fire set of high-energy, surf-pop punk, they make their way through what must have been the majority of their catalogue with tracks such as Dreamy Boy and Better Man. They rope the crowd in with their frenetic percussion and scuzzy guitar licks as the familiar City births a sea of forward-swinging heads.

There is a sudden rush of bodies stage-wards as hearts race: modestly gracing the stage and assuming their positions, DIIV return to our rainy city after their Mancunian debut at Deaf Institute in 2012. Their first album Oshin justifiably got a lot of people excited and as the dreamy drones of How Long Have You Known dissipate throughout the packed-out venue, Z. Cole Smith’s vocals envelop the listener in a nostalgic haze.

The vocal effects required for DIIV’s tracks deem it difficult to discern the mumblings of the headliner’s vocalist and so announcements of new track names are lost to anyone beyond the third row, though after three years in the making after a hurricane of troubling personal experiences, the new material sounds suitably darker yet still maintains DIIV’s signature dream-pop nature.

The slow building, epic Oshin causes a ripple of ecstasy and sounds like the soundtrack to a significant transformation; applicable to DIIV as their second anticipated LP is due out later this year. After the urgent and infectious Doused, the band make room for delighted punters who are bopping about onstage, though an indication of our generation is revealed after Smith asks stage-revellers “Do you guys want to hear another song or do you want to take a selfie on the stage?”

Through assessment of tonight’s audience, the public have missed the expansive, mysteriously magnetising sounds of DIIV. The near-future is envisaged where Oshin is played on repeat until we’re allowed to have at the new release, Is The Is Are.