According to frontman Matt Baty, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have never been asked to play Download festival. Given that the Newcastle quintet are one of Britain's very best stoner/doom/psych bands - and one of maybe three homegrown bands in that genre capable of selling out this 1,300-capacity venue, for example - this seems somewhat perverse. So you can imagine the band's bemusement when, at the end of last month, it was announced that - checks notes - "iconic pop legends" Vengaboys have been asked to play this summer's weekender, as part of the District X programme, "as one of the most requested bookings of all time." In an ordinary world, then, tonight would be a celebration for the release of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' fifth album, the excellent Death Hilarious: instead, as Baty informs the crowd, it's an opportunity for the band to keep honing their live skills in the hope of reaching Vengaboys-esque levels. Good luck with that fellas!
If the Geordie mob never quite scale those exalted heights tonight, it's not for the want of trying. As well as being a hilarious host, Baty is a captivating presence at the front of the stage - showboating like a Henry Rollins/Freddie Mercury hybrid in his pink Muay Thai shorts - while his bandmates hammer out some of the best riffs Tony Iommi never wrote.
Opening with seven minute head-caver The Wyrm, one of the highlights of Death Hilarious, Pigs x 7 simply pummel Koko into gleeful submission, with a set drawn largely from their new record and its predecessor Land Of Sleeper. In the NWOBHM oral history Denim And Leather, Raven's John Gallagher is quoted as saying, "The north-east was always big for hard rock. Still is." which makes you wonder why so few good bands have emerged from the area this century, but Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are doing their spiritual forefathers Venom, Fist and Warfare proud. If the likes of Ultimate Hammer, Reducer, and the acid-fried Hawkwind-meets-Motorhead assault of GNT don't get your blood pumping then you might actually be already dead.
Before the band departs, Baty shares a story about meeting a Pigs x 7 'fan' at a festival show, who suggests that the quintet would be a better live act if he simply introduced them, then fucked off out of the way, as his presence onstage is largely an irritation. Rude, frankly. The vocalist then gamely introduces his bandmates by the names of WWE veterans - "Ric Flair! The Undertaker!" - before King Of Cowards epic A66 brings the night to a raucous climax. And as the house lights go on, the PA begins blasting out - what else? - We Like To Party! (The Vengabus). Textbook.
You wish your Friday night was this good.
