It has been a long time coming. A proper live show from one of the biggest drum and bass acts in the world, and one of Australia’s biggest dance music exports. Despite years of tearing up the UK, we have seen very little of Pendulum on the east coast of this country; a DJ gig here and there, but never the full live experience. With the past 12 months having been spent working out how to translate their album to the stage, it was time to finally unleash a full-blown Pendulum avalanche with a gig to launch their new album, In Silico.
A surprisingly large queue (given it was 10pm) greeted us outside the Metro, on what was a rather cool Thursday evening. Despite being sold out, it seemed that the multitude of tickets purchased through different outlets all had to be separately validated, stamped, corroborated and authorised, making for a slow 25-minute crawl into the venue. Another long wait for a refreshing ale (conveniently served in a can) and all of a sudden, almost an hour was gone with very little musical enjoyment to be had. However, with the main act not starting until 11pm (quite late for a Thursday don’t you think?).
Immediately evident was Pendulum’s huge crossover appeal, reflected in the diversity of the crowd rolling up to the venue. Rock-heads with Slipknot shirts; fashion kiddies with Escher-like patterns on their tees; glammed-up ladies wearing impossibly tight pants and oddly shaped skirts; daggy boys rolling up in whatever was vaguely clean, and young ones still struggling to grow their first genuine batch of facial hair. All and sundry had turned up for music that they would all probably define differently.
Social demographic musings aside, a stroll into the main auditorium to find a good viewing position revealed an already overflowing venue. Bass Kleph was manning the decks, warming up the capacity crowd. However, whoever was controlling the sound clearly saw Bass Kleph more as a purveyor of background music than a warm up DJ, as the audio levels were way too low. Conversations were happily drowning out the selection of beats that Sir Kleph had on offer, despite his enthusiastic bouncing, tweaking and mixing.
As the time for Pendulum grew closer, the massive crowd got progressively amped. Even one of the roadies managed to illicit a massive cheer as he walked across stage. With a massive lighting rig behind the stage, and a suitable quantity of stage-smoke wafting across the instruments, the boys finally strolled out on stage in one of those classic rock-gig silhouettes to unbridled screams from the crowd. When Pendulum finally let loose, an explosion of drums washed across a sea of raised hands. Half of those hands were thrust in the air in the classic devil-horn salute; the other half used the single pointed finger, universal symbol of exaltation for the DJ. Rock and dance salutes, united!
At first, it was hard to make out what was being played as the music was incredibly drum-heavy, with the pounding kick completely invading the ear canal. The detail in much of the music was lost under the wall of sound being generated from the drums. It wasn’t until the MC started yelling “Fasten your seatbelts!” that it became apparent they were kicking things off with one of their most familiar tracks. It was not long before the Metro was jumping in a single frenzied mass, like a possessed flock of emus trying to recall how to fly.
It seemed that they were keen to keep the huge crowd happy, throwing down a tasty mix of classic tracks from Hold Your Colour along with a sample of what is to come from the new album. Easily one of the highlights was the truly epic version of Voodoo People, which somehow had never felt as raw or compelling as in that live setting. One of the biggest surprises was how powerfully their latest single, Propane Nightmares, translated live. In a rare feature of the night, Rob Swire’s voice truly shone above the arrangement. The intensity dropped momentarily, with the beautiful acoustic intro to Girl in the Fire, before once again Pendulum built to one of their inevitable climaxes.
Towards the end of their set, the familiar sounds of Blood Sugar started to surge through the speakers. Yet again the sound just did not seem right, as the first synth stabs did not carry above the bottom-heavy mix. This did not seem to bother most people however as the masses continued to move like a pack of feeding piranhas. After a small break (not long enough to know categorically that this was the encore), they brought forth the track I had been waiting for all night; Hold Your Colour. Replacing the intro keys with an almost U2-esque rolling guitar, the night ended just where I wanted it, in that fury of energy and melody that Pendulum so effortlessly create. Just awesome.
Despite walking off stage, the crowd were baying for more, chanting Pendulum over and over. After a few minutes of this, it became clear that the guy in control of the lighting had committed the cardinal sin of crowd control – when the gig is over, turn the house lights on! There was an unfortunate anti-climax as the house lights flicked on after a solid 5 minutes of chanting, giving the signal that the gig was entirely over. In all, Pendulum’s set only lasted one hour and fifteen minutes – while that may sound short, any longer and the intensity of the music may have disembowelled some of the more fragile audience members. Safety first kiddies!
The Metro was the perfect venue for this type of gig, as the tiered stage allowed for an awesome view of all the live bashing and jumping. Whether you think Pendulum are drum and bass, rock phonies, genre sell-outs, or musical visionaries, you can’t deny the incredible energy they bring to their live show and their ability to appeal to a truly eclectic audience. While some may decry their move towards pop, if it were not for Pendulum I would probably never have listened to the likes of Shapeshifter, DJ Marky & Stamina MC, Chase and Status, Andy C, LTJ Bukem and a host of others in the drum and bass scene. Surely popularising a genre is not a bad thing, especially when you can bring your own unique stamp to a sound.
Despite some occasionally muddy sound, Pendulum clearly showed why they have carved themselves an enviable niche as genre-bending, world-beating, fist-pumping, good-time junkies. It was well worth the wait.
s15mike says...
Was a top night! As you say, shame the sound wasn't as good as the act themselves, but was awesome to see them live all the same