Reflections of Darkness - Music Magazine - Pendulum

Details: Written by: Sebastian Huhn; Published: 07 October 2010

Zeche, Bochum, Germany
6th October 2010
Pendulum, South Central

It was astonishing how many people already were waiting there in front of the Zeche to take their places for the show of PENDULUM and SOUTH CENTRAL, and what those people and the ones following them would go on to do… Well, read the lines below.

South Central

SOUTH CENTRAL is the moniker, Brighton-based DJs Rob and Keith chose for their musical activities. After touring a lot through clubs, they attracted first attention in 2006 and from there on experienced growing popularity. The debut album ‘Diamonds’ came out in 2008. Besides that, they’ve done very prolific remix work for a plethora of artists. http://www.myspace.com/southcentralmusic

Music & Performance
The name SOUTH CENTRAL was already familiar, and what they do on stage just as well. But first it was just hooded guys behind a table mixing their electro sounds together. But at an early point the groove developed a momentum of its own and went about sowing its infectious seed among the many people. The effect became visible in an instant with the boys and girls - mostly boys this evening- started swaying in the electro beats of the guys who one or the other time climbed up their table to perform from there, and on rare occasions even left to go to the front and get a little closer to the audience. They frequently gave some famous tunes a new painting while incorporating them into their non-stop mix like RAMMSTEIN’s ‘Du Hast’ whose sparse lyrics were sung loudly by the audience or NIRVANA’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’. The crowd did like it, really! But highlight of the show was definitely the remix of THE PRODIGY’s ‘Invaders must die’ when a circle pit formed on the floor. When the guys left at the end it was more than a decent applause accompanying them.

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 7.2 / 10

Pendulum

Already their first release, the single ‘Vault’, roused great interest all over the scene and became highly sought-after around the time of release. They combine Drum’n’Bass with a live band, club music and rock with clear-cut rap lyrics and a distinct pop appeal. A mixture which is hard to find even if you’d be taken a longer look at different scenes! In 2005 then, they released the debut album ‘Hold Your Colour’, followed by the immensely successful ‘In Silico’ from 2008. Their most recent and third full-length instalment ‘Immersion’ climbed up to the UK charts’ pole position. PENDULUM is Rob Swire (vocals / synth / producer), Gareth McGrillen (bass guitar / DJ), Perry ap Gwynedd (guitar), Paul 'El Hornet' Harding (DJ), KJ Sawka (drums) and Ben Verse (MC). http://www.myspace.com/pendulum

Music & Performance
“Are you fucking ready for PENDULUM?” Well, the answer was actually predictable, the volume wasn’t and by that I’m not solely talking about the audience’s. Anyway, so I didn’t know what I could expect from PENDULUM even though I was told they were great. But for that what happened there after the introduction and with the start of ‘Salt in the Wounds’ you couldn’t quite prepare in any way. Ben occupied the front of the stage most of the time and upon entering hyped up everyone and would continue to do so in the further course of the show. The gravitating rhythms of the opener made the walls shaking in their fabric, kicked you in the gut and simply made you want to dance. Atop the beats, elements of rock drum’n’bass and whatnot converged to create a mind-blowing experience.

Normally, you wouldn’t expect something like that to happen already in the early stages of a show, but PENDULUM seemed to be a different category to measure with: A wicked mosh pit unfolded in front of our eyes; the people dancing and jumping at the wildest while on stage Ben had no intention of slowing down and fuelled the fire even more. His rap-like vocal deliveries would dominate, but on several songs it was Rob coming to the microphone with a guitar and bringing up highly melodic and urgent lines with an impressing strength. Mostly they were the start of what was to become a beat inferno in the aftermath with the crowd taking the mood scale to new heights. ‘Showdown’ would’ve been any bands normal set closer and ‘Voodoo People’ (THE PRODIGY) maybe one of the encore, but theirs wasn’t even close to reaching the end and wherever you would look you’d see only happy, sweaty and dancing people going completely nuts. It was pure adrenaline taking over and here it was good that way.

One could draw the conclusions that after such an exhausting ride of beats with a sweeping mix of styles the audience should’ve been close to drop dead right away. They had enough energy resources to party on through a little encore. I kind of had a hard time to find the right words to summarize yesterday’s event. But that it was one of the most amazing shows I’ve seen recently sums it up pretty good.

Setlist
01. Intro
02. Salt In The Wounds
03. Granite
04. The Vulture
05. Showdown
06. Voodoo People (The Prodigy cover)
07. Witchcraft
08. Fasten Your Seatbelts
09. Slam
10. Midnight Runner
11. The Island Pt.1
12. The Island Pt.2
13. Tarantula
14. Propane Nightmares
15. Blood Sugar
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16. Crush
17. Watercolour
18. Outro

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 8.7 / 10