The year was 2007. The place was the Underground Project in Manchester. A Mega Bus adventure for myself and a bunch of friends to see a live set by the band who had the audacity to cover The Prodigy and do a stunning job of it. Playground politics dictated that I steer clear of electronic music, but Pendulum got a pass from the rock crowd. Tonight we’re at the Hydro to get our drum and bass heads on and find out if the atmosphere can be just as good when you’re not in a warehouse rave.
Early doors and to a slowly filling Hydro, Shockone – an Australian producer DJ – started warming the crowd up. I’m probably the worst person to critique a DJ… I don’t know what I’m talking about there. What I do know about is energy and Shockone brings it in abundance. You can tell he’s loving being on the stage and there’s a bit of dancing going on.
The main support is definitely worth talking about. Scarlxrd starts with a DJ on the desks kicking us off before the man himself launches himself on stage from a scaffold tower at the side of the stage. Going into this set completely unaware was the way to go, because Trap Metal is a genre I would have never been something I expected. The beats are fast and aggressive but the vocals coming out of Scarlxrd are something else.
Outrageously quick combined with screaming that puts any big metal band (and I’ve seen a lot) to shame. As the set goes on, the music gets heavier and more vicious. That’s one of the hallmarks of this genre… you can push the envelope more and more thanks to the magic of pre-produced music. The performance of Scarlxrd was exceptional, however and even though anything with decks isn’t my cup of tea, I will be looking out for his next show.
Pendulum’s arrival has an animated prelude on the impressive stage screens. An old school computer script building the anticipation of what’s coming up. This is the band that brought us the sonic recreation of the end of the world, after all. The band come on stage and show us that they don’t even need to walk downstage. Standing back where the drum riser normally lives, the stage presence is left to the massive screens showing visuals of nuclear explosions and fire.
Those visuals change depending on the song being played – my favourite being the western theme for ‘Propane Nightmares’. The pinnacle of the night was the homage to Glasgow, and Scotland as a whole, where national hero Limmy appears across the stage doing his DJing skit. This band knows its audience and it was a moment where I felt we should have all saluted, to be honest. My new favourite, Scarlxrd rejoins for ‘Mercy Killing’ and smashes it.
I was originally skeptical about a venue this size being able to sustain the energy of a band that I’d previously seen in warehouses. Tonight proves that the band could fill any room with energy that could ignite the atmosphere. I almost want to see them in a stadium just to see what they pull out of the hat next.
Photos by Catching Light Photography