REVIEW: DIVE Presents Bring a Fuzzed-Out Trip to Troy
01/26 @ Hangar on the Hudson
All photos by Pete Perry
“DIVE Presents put together yet another bill that will be passed down in local oral history for a long time to come.”
As I stood at the edge of the stage on a snowy night in Troy, I couldn't fight this strange feeling. Every band felt like nostalgia for a past that never really existed. It grew out of the connective tissue between that TV show your sibling liked but you weren't allowed to watch, and a band you never got to catch before they broke up.
There was something ethereal and surreal misting through the air at Hangar on the Hudson (in addition to all the fog — I'm talking about a different thing). It was almost like I was seeing what life could be like if I lived in a ‘90s teen drama. To be completely honest with you, it was also the first time in years that the show ending felt like a small tragedy and not permission to go home and get in bed. DIVE Presents put together yet another bill that will be passed down in local oral history for a long time to come.
First up was Hotline TNT. I last saw them play a secret show in a crumbling bandshell back in 2022, and I'll admit, I didn't ‘get it’ back then. It was a split bill with a hardcore band and I expected another. Maybe it's the grey hairs talking, but their sound lit up something deep inside of me this time. They wove a fabric of upfront and honest emotion out of fuzzed-out guitars, tight vocal harmonies, and drums that somehow pushed and pulled at the same time. There were parts that sped ahead of you and parts that felt like being dragged back by a weight of massive proportion despite a steady bpm. Often you didn't realize which one or the other you were in until the next section started. To be in the crowd was to be taken on a journey with them. Not one that was always pleasant, but one that you couldn't help but look back on fondly once their amps clicked off.
The Tubs followed with an absolute knockout performance. Imagine if the Manchester bands of the ‘90s traded their uppers and clubs for edibles and basements. Chiller, deeper, more introspective, and less concerned with making you dance because they knew they'd make you feel. In some ways, they felt like a secondhand puzzle where the stray pieces just so happened to replace the missing ones to make a collage more beautiful than the original. Rhythm guitar and vocals from a ‘90s college rock band, jangly leads that would've fit into the summer of love as easily as The Buzzcocks, and a rhythm section that not only glued them together, but lifted them both up. In short, I spent most of the set slackjawed in awe that I'd never heard of this band before, knowing this was a turning point in my life around music.
Wishy refused to be outdone. I usually roll my eyes at bands with three guitarists, but they not only pulled it off, they made me reconsider my position. The kind of excess that turns into sonic mush from less skilled players became a finely molded sculpture of a summer passed but fondly remembered in the many hands of Wishy. To put it simply, the music was charming. The songs were smartly written and in the paraphrased words of Miles Davis, "the notes were spent like dollars" — each player only added what enhanced the sound. They didn't try to beat you over the head with the feeling of each song, but gently led you to walk there yourself.
Horse Jumper of Love had an altogether different approach. The three-piece was happy to hit the fuzz pedal and drop their sound on you like a ton of bricks, but before you knew it the bricks had turned to feathers that blew away in the breeze. I haven't seen a band so absolutely in control of their dynamics in a long time. The lyrics existed to serve the music and the music painted a landscape to back up the lyrics. They've been heroes in this scene for a long time now and it's exceedingly obvious they've put their 10,000 hours in a few times over. While the other bands reminded me of good times gone by, Horse Jumper of Love put triumph over the bad times at center stage. Like walking home through a snowstorm, there were moments of beauty, moments where you didn't think you could keep going, and resolutions that you simply must. These moments formed a sonic texture much greater than the sum of its parts and showed off the pure talent of these three players.
Finally, Canaries closed out the night. I expected to stay for a couple songs, snap a few shots and head home (give me a break, I'm cresting the proverbial hill and it was a school night), but suddenly it was the end of their set and those who dared to stay stood in awe. This was another patchwork of players who, on paper, shouldn't have sounded as good together as they did, but made a complex formula have a perfect result. Drums that borderlined punk drove soft vocals, different singers on different songs trading off lines, and bass and guitar work that refused to be pinned to a genre made for a perfect closer to a night of broken assumptions. They taught me that it was time to think less and listen more.
This epic bill, known as "The Trip" on the posters, couldn’t have been described more perfectly. Not in the sense of a tab on your tongue, but of a long, extended journey chronicled on a forgotten VHS tape. I was put through perils, I saw unrefined beauty, I was beaten down and picked back up, but most of all, I was left with a lingering feeling that things may not go the way that I wanted them to, but that it would ultimately be alright. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a live version of a soundtrack to a movie unseen by most but absolutely revered by those in the know. Thanks to DIVE, I was let in on a powerful secret that changed the course of every life that stood in that room.
