Live Review

Pendulum – Metropolis Party, Warehouse Project, Manchester

• 17th Nov 2007

Two things you may not know about Pendulum are; they come from Perth, Australia and just how hard they rock live.

The guys, previously only labelled a three piece, arrive on UK shores with a full band in tow for a series of sold out live shows, none more spectacular than at Manchester’s Warehouse Project.

Just over a year since their first live performances, the Pendulum ‘live’ experience is reportedly as close to album replication as possible, the sound of which the band accurately describe as ‘a wall of sound.’

You have seen bands before, you have seen DJs and MCs but this full line-up of Rob Swire (vocals/synth/producer), Gareth McGrillen (bass guitar/producer/DJ), Perry Apgee (guitar), Paul ‘El Hornet’ Harding (DJ), Kodish (drums) is like nothing else on planet Earth at this moment in time.

The set consists of Fasten Your Seatbelt, Blood Sugar, Girl in the Fire, new single Granite and another brand new album track yet to be released. The highlights of the set are the unmistakable introduction to Slam and a rendition of the Prodigy’s Voodoo People that includes stage diving and crowd surfing.

The Pendulum crowd makes your average Slayer concert look like a litter of kittens in comparison. Pendulum incite a riot in the cavernous warehouse, consciously whipping the crowd into a pumped frenzy. The audience are transformed into an army of 300 Spartans when the MC says make some noise. The caverns beneath Piccadilly shake as the roar of Pendulum’s North West massive rally the war cry. This is a moshpit rather than a dancefloor and to be honest Glasswerk.co.uk are not quite prepared for the battering we initially receive but by the end we’re slamming boys and elbow-dropping girls from the speaker stacks and feeling right at home in the melee.

Plenty of drugs have slipped through the stringent searches although not everyone is so lucky but we still can’t help feel like we’re in a novelty and corporate sponsored retrospective eighties rave. The setting is right but there’s just too much Budweiser and the whole thing feels a bit too clean. Until that is we discover the toilets are portaloos and we’re in a festival…underground…and it’s a rave…and Goldie is DJ’ing. Yeah, pretty special. Nuff said.

For combining the best bits of heavy metal and the best bits of hard dance, nothing can top Pendulum, the musical equivalent of being hit full force in the face by a beautifully crafted sledgehammer from 2145.

The aptly titled Earstorm records have a busy time ahead with these guys launching this live assault on the UK mainland. Look forward to the new record by the same title landing next year.