Live at the Blue Basement: The ascent of Deep Sea Diver
On a night where London is hosting Sparks and LCD Soundsystem, Deep Sea Diver might just be the hottest band in the capital. Because sweet, merciful Christ, there wasn’t a soul in the basement of Jack White‘s Third Man Records store in Soho that didn’t sweat out half their bodyweight during the Seattle indie rock sensations’ debut UK show.
None more so than the band themselves. Singer and guitarist Jessica Dobson seems a little taken aback as she asks for a towel from backstage four songs in. Grinning, as she wondered aloud whether the assembled 60 or so devotees who snapped up tickets to this show in an afternoon are getting the same kind of flashbacks to high school garage shows as she is.
Some might be. The Blue Basement is only slightly more built for concerts than most garages are. The “stage” the band are crammed onto is used to test out Third Man guitar gear by day. It certainly wasn’t built to hold a full four-piece indie rock band with two guitarists, a rhythm section and two keyboards. The kind of band whose last tour of their native US ended with a sold-out show at Seattle‘s legendary, 1,150 capacity Showbox.
Which puts the band in a position that others have fallen flat from before. It would be understandable for any band to feel a little put out by a show like this. To go from a sold out show with over a thousand people in attendance to one with, and I do mean this very literally, five percent of the capacity of the Showbox gig in the space of a few months could be a blow to a rising indie rock band’s ego. Absolutely not the case here.
You can trust me on this, too, because everyone assembled in the Blue Basement was close enough to the band to see the individual expressions on their faces. It was clear that this was a lifelong dream being fulfilled. Not only because Dobson took a moment to thank everyone who’d been waiting for the band to tour these parts since their original UK tour was announced in 2020. Obviously, those shows couldn’t happen, but good things come to those who wait.
That’s not just us either. Had the band played those shows five years ago, they wouldn’t be touring off the back of their fourth album, and first release with legendary label Sub Pop, Billboard Heart. It will take one hell of a record to wrestle its current crown of “rock album of the year” away from its Warpaint meets The Cars sound. So, while it may have taken a while to get there, Deep Sea Diver seem to have all the tools needed to launch themselves into the stratosphere.
A cursory glance at the stage shows just how much this means to them. Drummer Peter Mansen beams with unabashed joy as he thrashes the Queens of the Stone Age-esque ‘Emergency’ home. Despite being backed into a presumably very damp corner, bassist Garrett Gue and guitarist Elliot Jackson are note-perfect. Jackson, in particular, is impressive given how often he switches from guitar to keyboard with barely enough room to tie his shoelaces, let alone sling a guitar across his back to switch to synth.
That said, it should hardly be a surprise that the band can acclimate themselves to surroundings like this. Deep Sea Divers are, above all, professionals. This may sound like the most backhanded of compliments. A nice way of saying that they do their jobs well with a minimum of fuss or, on the downside, passion. Hear me out here though. Deep Sea Diver aren’t a hyped up bunch of kids who don’t know what they’re doing. They’re tenured, with nearly a decade and a half’s worth of miles on the clock.
Even when they’re not Deep Sea Diving, each member is a session musician, playing for the likes of Beck and Conor Oberst. All this to say that if they can play a show this vital, thrilling and life-affirming in a place like this, they really can play it anywhere. Given the momentum behind them off the back of Billboard Heart, they really could be playing anywhere in the country given a year or two.
Perhaps they won’t be playing anywhere that Dobson can hope into the crowd to shred out guitar solos multiple times a night, the way she does here. However, that won’t make Deep Sea Diver any less riveting than they were tonight. According to Dobson’s final address to the crowd before the climactic, brooding run through of ‘Happiness Is Not a Given’, they’ll be back in the UK around November. There, you can see it for yourself.
They may have been literally the hottest band in London tonight, but more importantly, they’re metaphorically one of the hottest bands in the world. What’s more, with any luck, they will be for a long time.
