Live: PWEI - Preaching to the Converted

It's Saturday night and I've just driven over three hundred miles to Birmingham to see a band that split up over eight years ago. Have I lost the plot? Is this really worth the trek? Were they really as good as I remember? And even if they were, will they be even remotely as good now? Will I ruin the memory of those last gigs I went to see? It's time to find out.

It's with these memory and worries that I make my way into the Carling Academy in Birmingham to see Pop Will Eat Itself... who? It seems a generation has already grown up without PWEI; god, I feel old! So for those of you who don't know who PWEI are... well... er, you know what; I really haven't a clue how to describe them. "They're very much like scruffy pigs to look at.... they're very, very ugly indeed." You smiled, yes? Thats what PWEI are - they are a band that makes you smile. You can't help it. Their music never sits still; with its samples, pop, rhythm and rhyme you'll be pogoing along to the beats before you even know what pogoing is!

The place is packed wall to wall with a much older crowd than most of the last few gigs I've attended recently. People have flown in from the States, Japan and Australia just for these shows. It's a pleasant, welcoming atmosphere and you can feel the energy already building in the venue. You can tell nearly everyone is a fan and not just heard one or two tracks.

Tony, Gill and I stand chatting to a small group of people listening to a rather weak support band in the vein of Snow Patrol watered down. We're not impressed! So we wait and chat and the atmosphere still builds, no thanks to the support. Not soon enough they are off. We move into the pit - no standing at the side watching for this gig. I remember the old days and we all know what to expect.

"What is the truth about rock music? Music is a powerful, and perhaps the most powerful, medium in the world. Music. Plato says when the music of a society changes, the whole society will change. Aristotle, a contemporary of Plato's, says when music changes there should be laws to govern the nature and the character of that music. Lenin says that the best and the quickest way to undermine any society is through its music... Music, ladies and gentleman, is the gift of God. It was given to man to offer praises to God and to lift us up to him and to exalt Him to touch the tender recesses of our hearts and of our minds. Satan has taken music and he has counterfeited it, convoluted it, twisted it, exploited it, and now he's using it to hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer a message into the minds and the lifestyles of this generation."

And this was how it started with the sample playing and the band walking on stage. The relative calm before the storm: "Perverts, on your knees, for what your about to receive." And with those first few words of preaching to the perverted, the crowd erupted into a heaving mass of pogoing. The dance of the mad had already begun, and that song wasn't even going to be played till the end of the set; there was no stopping us now. The question was could the band keep up - after all, it's been a few years.

This question was soon answered: Graham was jumping about like a nutter at every opportune - and inopportune -moment; Clint was whipping the crowd into a frenzy that wasn't going to stop; the tunes were pumping and the pace rarely dropped for the whole gig. The tunes have stood the test of time as well, with Kick to Kill having had a little facelift - making it even more intense! - though the highlight for me had to be the Poppies' version of Their Law; it blows the Prodigy version out the water with its heavy bass.

Sure, Clint missed a line or two, but it's forgivable; after all, it had been a while. Every tune played was a classic - no new stuff that we might not know to clutter up the set! So as they played the final track, Karmadrome, it truly did feel like karma; this gig was as near perfect as you'll get.

www.pweination.org

poprock · 25th January 2005, 10:47pm

Damned straight.

The incredible PWEI really are still incredible.

The Birmingham gigs were intense, and the London show last night topped even those... Gill's sweating his guts out in the pit at the final gig as I type.

PWEI were always a special band, always ahead of their time. What we fans never realised in the late eighties and earliy nineties was just how far ahead of their time they were. This series of reformation gigs have been the perfect reminder. Breakbeat, drum and bass, big beat, grunge, nu-metal, indie-rock, punk, funk, whatever the fuck you want - it was all there right from the start, before such genres had names.

Words can't do justice. Thousands of people who should be old enough to know better spent each night of the tour shoulder to shoulder, pogoing and grinning, sweating like pigs doing the dance of the mad. I'm battered and bruised, and still smiling at every line and every beat that reverberates through my head.

PWEI could very well be the best band in the world right now - watching them for a few nights makes me ask one big question; "What the hell are the rest of the world's bands playing at?" PWEI threw down the gauntlet ten to fifteen years ago - they gave the world a technicolour climax of new, undiluted, pure adrenalin-kick music... and the world didn't even fucking notice. Nobody took on their ideas, nobody tried to match them. It's 2005 and there's nobody out there who can hold a candle to these teenage grandads, these grebo gurus.

They're back. Even if it turns out to only have been for five nights, it was important.

*Edit - for those interested, there's a handy photo of a setlist from one of the nights here. The order changed each night, and there were three or four songs removed/added to make each night different, but it gives a good overview of the kinda stuff the boys were playing.

pANDAS Radio · 26th January 2005, 10:26am

I will post up a full tour review when i get home but just now i'm preparing to head home after a fantastic week which was ended in style at a celeb filled aftershow party in the Empire. It was like a TOTP green room from 1992.

**Ghostsuit** · 26th January 2005, 1:54pm

I have to agree with you Tony. Not much more I can say other than.

Quote:

"What the hell are the rest of the world's bands playing at?"

poprock · 26th January 2005, 3:36pm

There's a pretty sympathetic review here from the Telegraph.

"... a lesson to today's retro/revivalist bands in how innovation and looking to the future are no barriers to soundtracking a great party, and how self-effacing humour need not preclude intelligence."

**Ghostsuit** · 26th January 2005, 5:24pm

To be totally honest the Gig of the Decade has already happened for me and it'll take something magical to knock it off the top spot.

poprock · 26th January 2005, 5:31pm

I fully expect to see three amazing gigs in the next month or so (The Kills, Le Tigre with Gravy Train, and The Dresden Dolls)... But there's no way on Earth they can even be in the same league. They're competing for second place, and there's a real big drop-off after first.

mini_dez · 26th January 2005, 8:09pm

nice to see all the travelling was worth it..

SqueeTDM · 26th January 2005, 8:12pm

i so wish they played glasgow, young as i am i do know the wonders of pwei

**Ghostsuit** · 26th January 2005, 8:18pm

Travelling was more than worth it even the Speeding ticket and points I'll get

. Still PWEI in concert is an experience.

Triple_B · 26th January 2005, 10:16pm

PWEI were always going to rock. I'm in agreement with the statement that there still isn't a band to touch them in terms of innovation today.

They rewrote the musical book over their career and I hope they carry on doing it for years to come.

Kick to Kill is my particular fave, the intro to that song lets you know what PWEI are all about. Bouncy, full on drums. Pulsating bassline. Catchy guitar riff. Not to mention those distinctive vocals creating the atmosphere and getting the crowd bouncing.

One of the most fun bands you'll ever encounter, I'm sorry I missed them....AGAIN!

BURKE

Moonflower · 26th January 2005, 10:54pm

It was great to meet you,tony and gill and what a fantastic night i had sunday one of the best gigs ever for me im still hyper!!!!!!!!

Dave_CherryKick · 27th January 2005, 8:17am

Birmingham? eh? and not even a phone call .....

poprock · 27th January 2005, 8:31am

Hehe. Forbes told us he was staying with a mate - we assumed he meant you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_wolf_girl

... im still hyper!!!!!!!!

Are you ever not?

Dave_CherryKick · 27th January 2005, 8:35am

well, if he was staying with me .. he didnt - ha ha ha

no doubt some super-hot young lady put him up for the night ... fnar fnar