The first Pendle live of this year kicked off with Marco Tamimi taking to the stage to swoon the crowd with his gentle voice and beautiful guitar playing. Standing on stage with nothing but an acoustic guitar, a worn out voice and a cup of honey tea he managed to woo the crowd into submission with his charm and rhythm, he even brought on a surprise guest for an extremely well received rendition of ‘…Baby One More Time’. Marco has consistently proved that he is a key musical figure on campus, playing everything, from gigs to extravs. From what we’ve seen at this gig it doesn’t look like Marco is planning to slow down this year. Watch this talent.
Next up was furious Mancunian Punk band (or as they like to be referred to: ‘ketamine surf rock band’) Precious McKenzie who crammed as many songs as they could into their set, furiously barrelling from tune to tune each time with more and more energy; at one point the main vocalist had detached the microphone and was writhing around on the floor as he sang, intense to say the least. Some would say that going straight from an acoustic act into a punk band was a jarring shift but it was what was needed to prepare Pendle for Allusondrugs.
At 23:30, drowning in guitar pedals, Allusondrugs took to the stage to close Pendle live. Their sound can best be described as a crazy mixture of psych, grunge and punk, you can never quite pin down what they are going to do sonically and that translates to their live shows. As soon as one song finishes it is anyone’s guess as to what could happen next. Allusondrugs will go down in history as one of the most physically active bands that Lancaster University has ever seen, each of the members danced and thrashed independently of each other at all times, many of them coming off the stage to inject some energy into the crowd. They manged to strike a perfect balance between remaining musically tight whilst also bringing the 90s grunge atmosphere in full force.
The Yorkshire band howled through their 45 minute set playing songs off their last couple of EPs as well as some of their newer material such as ‘Am I Weird’ and ‘I Should have gone to uni’ . The enamoured crowd reacted really positively to all of the songs whether or not they knew them or not. In my opinion, this is a testament not only to the band but also the crowd.
Although Pendle was a fantastic venue I feel that it would have benefitted the gig if the lights were turned down a bit, no one wants to see a grunge band bathed in light. Overall though it showcased that Lancaster University/Pendle is more than fit to host some amazing up and coming bands, something that hopefully will continue throughout the year through Pendle Live, Rocksoc and Lancaster Indie and Alternative Music Society (LIAMS).
