Pendulum @ The Hordern Pavilion
drum and bass legends show that rhythm is a dancer.
Review by Natasha Christian & photos by Rhys Bennett.
It’s been a long while since I thought about Pendulum.
At some point in the 2010s Witchcraft was stuck in my head, but they’d largely faded from my thoughts since.
Vocalist Rob Swire once said in an interview that before the band moved to London, their last Australian show only had eight people. When I arrived at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Friday they weren’t short of fans.
First up was Perth DJ ShockOne who had the crowd dancing and waving finger guns in approval right away.
From where I stood, there were quite a few fans in the crowd who would fit right in with the dancing Skids from Letterkenny. Also sprinkled into the mix were some manic pixies and start-up CEO-types who insisted on wearing sunglasses inside.
During ShockOne’s remix of Pendulum’s Tarantula, I saw a young, loved-up couple share a beautiful embrace followed by an unexpected sniff of what looked like amyl - clearly, romance ain’t dead.
One thing I love about electronic music is that the melodies are as catchy as the lyrics, if not more. There were quite a few moments throughout the night where the crowd got carried away with singing along to the “beep, beeps” and “boop boops” like little robots lost in the motifs.
One thing I hate about this style of music is the touchy-feeliness of fans in altered states. When everyone’s on something, spatial awareness goes out the window which makes it a lot harder to find your place in the crowd and settle in for the night.
During his set, ShockOne paid fitting tributes to UK electronic legends The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. And while he made plenty of effort to engage with the crowd, his stage banter was often lost in the mix and difficult to hear.
Pendulum took the stage a few minutes early opening with Driver, where we got our first look at their industrial stage set-up and well-timed lighting. The crowd’s excitement reached fever pitch as the iconic intro to Propane Nightmares filled the venue. Bass player Gareth McGrillen and drummer KJ Sawka showed they’re a well-oiled machine, delivering the signature Pendulum sound flawlessly. The melody of this track is so infectious you can’t help but sing along to it, and you could hear hundreds of fans belting out the “doo dee doo, dee dee do do”. McGrillen’s backing vocals were up a bit too high though, which meant they sounded a lot bigger than Swire’s.
Swire teased the “goths in the house” with the incredibly Rammstein-sounding Come Alive. Sawka’s heavy industrial drum beat and Peredur ap Gwynedd’s chugging guitar riffs instantly had the crowd jumping in unison. The set then dove deep into drum and bass with Blood Sugar and a taste of The Prodigy’s Voodoo People. The band pulled the old and overused trick of getting the crowd on their knees, and it worked like a charm.
New track Guiding Light also made an appearance. While the basslines gave me chills, it was the least danceable song of the night, and the crowd seemed to lose its fire. Swire also switched up his vocals for this one, which oddly reminded me of early Grinspoon.
Aside from brief moments like the crowd kneeling and asking for hands in the air, there wasn’t much banter from anyone in the band, including Swire. Perhaps Pendulum knows their audience is here to dance, not talk. Still, it would’ve been nice to have an opportunity to connect with the band and see some of their personalities. I saw Descendents play The Metro a few nights later, where frontman Milo Aukerman gave a masterclass on this.
Around the halfway point, I started to feel like things were getting a bit repetitive, but that’s expected with this genre. I also started to pick up Pendulum’s formula - designed to mimic the highs and lows of an ecstasy-fuelled experience, with its quick, intense peaks followed by low and slow slogs that get a little dark and gloomy at times. It’s the tradeoff of experiencing such elation.
New song Colourfast, followed by Encoder from the Immersion album fell a bit flat compared to the highs we’d experienced so far, but it gave fans a much-needed chance to hydrate and cool down. This low was quickly followed by the peak of the night - The Island Part I and II - with crowd “woah-oahs” that could rival a Parkway Drive or Pennywise show. This was the dance banger we needed to bring things back to life.
The set also included Pendulum’s two metal collabs, Halo with Bullet for My Valentine and Self v Self with Inflames. While both tracks managed to get massive circle pits going (seriously, they rival some hardcore shows), the vocals were played via recordings, which isn’t a great live experience. I would’ve liked to see the band attempt these parts themselves or invite a local guest vocalist onstage (we’ve got plenty!).
The band briefly farewelled us with Tarantula. By this point, I’d moved up to the stands, where I got a good laugh watching four guys have a dance-off, two in baggy white shirts and brown shorts on one side of the stage, and two in black shirts and black jeans on the other - it was a bit Grease, The Musical.
For the encore, the dance floor was filled with nostalgia for the ABC News theme, followed by Watercolour from Immersion. By the end, I was danced out and feeling the “take me outta here” lyric a bit too much. While Pendulum was a lot of fun, I was ready to hit the sheets, claim back my personal space and enjoy the silence.
