| |
PENDULUM LIVE @ THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM
Pendulum Live last night... (Electric Ballroom, Camden, London) was fucking awesome.
I've never been to the Electric Ballroom before - half way up Camden High Street (and a stones throw from Knowhow Records - hi Dymond!) it's the sort of place my sister goes to see AFI and other rock and alternative bands. I don't usually do live bands or gigs. There's something about the 'sameyness' of guitar music that I always found a turn off. Then again, that's the same criticism often leveled at dance music. So what's the real score?
The first sign that this was not going to be an ordinary night was the line stretching all the way past Camden station at 7pm and the touts shouting "BUYING OR SELLING. PENDULUM TONIGHT" up and down the street. The second was the note on the ticket that said '14+'. At that point we skipped to the pub for an hour and a half to give the doors time to open and people to settle down.
My first impressions of the Electric Ballroom are that it's an excellent piece of space. After walking the short distance from the entrance to the main arena, the 1500 capacity room (a touch larger than room 2 at Fabric I'd say) was already half full with a lively mixture of goth, punk, camo and just about every other youth stereotype - many wielding glowsticks or with glow hoops threaded through their ear gages.
The warm up DJ - no idea who it was - played an eclectic if somewhat "obvious" warm-up set consisting of everything from Ctrl-Z and Deekline to Prodigy, Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine with a little TC and Subfocus thrown in for good measure and an oldschool classic or two. I have never in my life seen that many hands straight up in the air bouncing to a set as schizophrenic as that, especially when three quarters of the crowd were too young to have been there the first time round: this is relatively untrodden territory. Either way, it sounded good.
Eventually - and 45 minutes later than billed (one suspects that they do it on purpose...) the DJ wound down and stage lights came on to IMMENSE effect. Ladies and Gentleman, Prepare for the Sonic Recreation of The End of Drum & Bass, because a d&b show this is not. Not with a light show like this. To cheers - and chants - that'd blow your head off, arrived the five they'd all been waiting for (from left to right) Rob Swire, Ben (MC Verse), Perry something or other the lead guitarist, Gaz McGrillen on guitar (wearing that unmistakeable baseball cap) and of course Paul Kodish on drums.
For 90 minutes, they played everything you'd expect and then some. I don't need to name names because you already know: Another Planet, Granite, Fasten Your Seatbelt, Voodoo People, with an amazing light show to back it and not a sequencer in site. I know that for a fact: I helped work on some of their stage equipment right before they left on tour.
The crowd soaked it up, and the stage ensemble gave it their all. Verse, hype as ever, bounced from side to side giving it a few choice words. Rob's vocal presence - yes, he sung his own lyrics - was exceptional, and, to me, somewhat unexpected. His rendition of Granite raised some of the biggest cheers of the night. The hands in the air were there all throughout, be it slayers or glow sticks - only by now the room was full from front to back. There was plenty of jostling as quarter-full plastic pint glasses were regularly launched across the room from side to side or front to back, often along with items of clothing. Clearly a rock crowd.
If you were looking for a drum'n'bass perspective on this, well, there really isn't one. Pendulum as a live band "works" and works well. This is not about the worlds tightest production this side of Timbaland's bedroom closet; all live shows always have and always will sound somewhat raw, especially with live guitars and drums - but that's part of the charm. The truth is, it probably helps if you didn't like Pendulum when they made drum'n'bass. Every single tune they played made more sense on stage than they did in DJ sets.
At the end of the night, Prodigy they were not - but then you would never get to see Prodigy for only £15 a head. Last night was accessible and fun and put a proper smile on my face, and that's the whole point really. And I still made it home on the train afterwards.
Words: Ben XO
Photos: Mza |
|
|
Dogs On Acid > Comments > *REVIEWS: PENDULUM LIVE @ THE ELECTRIC BALLROOM
11-29-2007 02:43 PM
Big ups for pushing the envelope!
