Over the weekend DIIV played Los Angeles' Teragram Ballroom and did back-to-back live debuts of two songs: "Fender On The Freeway" from last year's Frog In Boiling Water and their new single "Return Of Youth," one of the 5 Best Songs Of The Week and the first song the band released since frontman Zachary Cole Smith lost his house in the LA wildfires. In the press release for the new song, Smith compared the two tracks, saying: "Where 'Fender On The Freeway' found peace in the patterns of a gigantic macro, this one finds it in a mundane and simple micro." Now, DIIV can also find peace in the $1 million oversized novelty check they received from ExxonMobil during that show.
News first broke about DIIV's partnership with ExxonMobil about a year ago when the band shared this indisputably authentic promotional video for the oil and gas corporation:
Upon accusations that they'd "sold out," DIIV assured fans on the indieheads subreddit that "this partnership has not only allowed us a life beyond any of our wildest imagination, but we believe this era will be remembered as the most sustainable, green, and humanitarian times in human history." Considering DIIV's own experience with natural disasters, their expertise on the matter should be considered.
Then at that show on Saturday night, a team from ExxonMobil came out onstage before the encore and presented DIIV with that healthy check. That's gonna buy a lot of diapers for Smith's growing family! For good measure, the screen behind everyone displayed the “Mission Accomplished” banner President George W. Bush utilized in a televised 2003 speech declaring America had won the Iraq War. See a clip of the special moment below.
@stereogum Early this year DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith lost his home in the LA wildfires and fans raised funds to help him, his pregnant wife, and their young son get back on their feet. Last week the band released its first new track since then, “Return Of Youth,” with a video featuring footage of Smith’s destroyed Altadena neighborhood. Stereogum named the contemplative cut one of The 5 Best Songs Of The Week. “‘Return Of Youth’ was written before our son was born, a projection, zooming in until the larger existential dilemmas were out of frame,” Smith said of the track. “Where ‘Fender On The Freeway’ found peace in the patterns of a gigantic macro, this one finds it in a mundane and simple micro.” On Saturday night, the band played both that ‘Frog In Boiling Water’ track “Fender” and the new “Return Of Youth” live for the first time. Then, before the encore, DIIV accepted a $1,000,000 check from ExxonMobil. ? That’s gonna buy a lot of diapers. #DIIV #ExxonMobile #shoegaze
♬ original sound - stereogum
