PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS – CHALK, BRIGHTON 19.2.23
Today’s gig is a launch event for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ latest album ‘Land Of Sleeper’, courtesy of Resident music. The band, consisting of Matthew Baty on vocals, Sam Grant and Adam Ian Sykes on guitar, John-Michael Joseph Hedley on bass, and Ewan Mackenzie on drums, take to the Chalk stage at the seemingly quite unnatural time of 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. However, this is no sleepy post Sunday lunch audience. Everyone here is up for it!!!
Matthew Baty maintains his stage look of appearing like a cross between a Victorian gentleman bather and an adult toddler. When he sings he sounds like he could possibly be a son of Satan. Thus I remain convinced that this band are collectively the bastard sons of Black Sabbath. Whatever the band’s provenance, their music remains a festival of riff-driven magnificence. At times the volume is as full-blooded as it gets. It feels as if the music is coursing through your veins!
Baty is the consummate frontman. He thanks us for sharing their special moment by attending this show, and to be fair the band do appear to be quite emotional about that. Baty tells us that their main aim with this album is, for one week only, to outsell “Aqua’s Greatest Hits”. Well, we all need to have an ambition. Humour is key to the Pigs x 7 experience. For example, they have a song about “a pizza delivery that goes really, really badly”.
The way in which Pigs x 7 are perceived by both the music press and fans is interesting: they’re very definitely a heavy rock band, but they’re seen as being vaguely fashionable by the indie crowd. However, if they were to play Download Festival they would be viewed as being “too indie”, an accusation that was levelled at Biffy Clyro last year. Yet musically they have effectively taken up Black Sabbath’s mantle. They have the musical chops too – they play in 5/4 fer chrissakes!!! Indeed, they are in danger of being viewed as prog metal!!!
Sometimes the problem with album launch shows is that the band only plays the new album, which nobody has heard yet. Pigs x 7 don’t do that. The set today is fairly evenly split between the new album and previous album ‘Viscerals’. Indeed, occasionally they go back further, and we get ‘GNT’ and ‘A66’ from 2018’s ‘King Of Cowards’. Baty adds synth effects to ‘A66’, which makes them sound a bit like Hawkwind.
Baty tells us that after the gig they’re going to have a carvery buffet to celebrate the new album, together with a WWE style fight to the death featuring Noel Edmonds and Ross Kemp. If only such entertainment was available!!! Sadly it isn’t, and all too soon we emerge blinking into the glaring daylight. Thanks Pigs x 7, for a very entertaining and enjoyable afternoon.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs setlist:
‘Mr Medicine’ (from 2023 ‘Land Of Sleeper’ album)
‘Rubbernecker’ (from 2020 ‘Viscerals’ album)
‘Ultimate Hammer’ (from 2023 ‘Land Of Sleeper’ album)
‘Reducer’ (from 2020 ‘Viscerals’ album)
‘Ball Lightning’ (from 2023 ‘Land Of Sleeper’ album)
‘World Crust’ (from 2020 ‘Viscerals’ album)
‘Big Rig’ (from 2023 ‘Land Of Sleeper’ album)
‘Terror’s Pillow’ (from 2023 ‘Land Of Sleeper’ album)
‘GNT’ (from 2018 ‘King of Cowards’ album)
‘A66’ (from 2018 ‘King of Cowards’ album)
