Pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs

Venue:

The Crawfurd Arms, Wolverton. https://www.thecraufurdarms.com/

Date: 31/08/2019

The charmingly named Newcassel-based “Pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs” (Pigs7) have made a name for themselves as an art-grebo sludge metal band (don’t stop reading here). Throughout this reassuringly loud and intense gig I couldn’t but think I was watching a band inspired by the earlier Black Sabbath and Hawkwind albums, managed by Damian Hurst, and fronted by Derek Smalls, a shrunken Henry Rollins and Owen Jones. They played maybe 7 songs in an hour, and it was unclear where drones and riffs ended, and music-concrete started. The art-metal was preceded by, if anything, the charmingly-named “Godspeed, you Peter Andre”, which, as I don’t get out much, I was not quite sure how to describe. The Sleaford Mods after an art college make over and in touch with their female side, perhaps

The audience:

Hipper, younger, and squarer than I expected for the darlings of “The Quietus”. Rather fewer Tommy Saxondales than you normally see in rock pubs and gigs, quite a lot of old punks. A full room, and an appreciative audience who certainly accepted in-your-face difficulty positively, rather than a call for “More Heep, more Quo, more Priest”.

It made me think..

Metal may be almost hip, and their audiences are not half as conservative as stereotype would have it.

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