Molly Wroe

First to grace the stage at Sunderland’s Independent were Roxy Girls, who at a first look, were the most ‘Independent Venue Week’ band I have ever laid eyes on. Baggy jeans, oversized t-shirts from The Fall and purposefully beat-up guitars, this Sunderland band couldn’t be any more of an advert for tiny venues if they tried. Independent was about half full when they began to play, and I couldn’t help but think that the audience was much, much older than the target demographic for the gig. I was to find out later that it was spot-on for Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, who I was semi-shocked to see were older than I expected.

Roxy Girls’ raucous post-punk sound filled the room, with every drum beat resonating in your chest as they played their absolute hearts out. I was incredibly impressed with their energy, since the half-filled room completely lacked any kind of movement and instead resembled a room full of grumpy dads dragged out of the pub to see their child’s school performance. They opened with ‘Straddling The Cannon’, sped up slightly to really ramp up the energetic performance that waited ahead.

Almost without stopping for breath, they rattled through 16 songs in the half an hour they had, which then quickly indicated my poor choice of standing directly next to the speaker. During ‘Taxi Cab’, it came to me who I would compare them to if someone were to ask me - if The Ramones and Maximo Park came together to make one band, Roxy Girls would be it. They also played some unreleased music, such as ‘Dirtier’, ‘Commands’, ‘Droid’ and ‘Get Up’, which led to a little bit of harmless back-and-forth between the crowd and the band over some forgotten lyrics... This really showcased their grungy mackem charm as they laughed it off and just carried on without any kind of fuss. It was only at the very end that they even introduced themselves!

After a short break, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs took the stage and immediately commanded the attention of the crowd - there was so much shock value to their act and so much to look at, it became quite overwhelming to start with. All eyes were straight on Matt Baty and Jean-Michael Hedley, lead singer and bass guitarist respectively, who were barefoot for the whole gig. Jean-Michael rocked rolled-up jean shorts and a tight band tee, mullet flailing with every headbang he did, whereas Matt wore some Nike football shorts and a strikingly sheer shirt with constellation prints, which lasted just short of two songs before it was relegated to the side. They made Adam, Sam and Christopher look relatively normal in comparison, with each of them rocking out in their own ways - Christopher’s drumming was accompanied by a fantastic facial expression that looked like a silent shout the entire show.

As for the music, it was a lot. Whether it was a stylistic choice to have complete dissonance that I didn’t pick up on, or whether it was simply an issue with the sound levels, I will probably never know - all I know is that listening to them live is an utterly different experience to listening to them recorded. All instruments were amped up to 11 and lyrically the songs were practically indiscernible, but clearly some of the audience were lifelong fans as there was some truly impressive headbanging occurring further along the front row.

Their single ‘Reducer’ had its first live debut, and the instrumental was just as good if not better than the recorded version; I just couldn’t get into Matt’s aggressive shouting - nor could I truly focus when his ‘dancing’ could have been mistaken for an exorcism. I did enjoy ‘Cake of Light’ and a new song ‘Crazy in Blood’, both were particularly entertaining songs that made me want to jump around. The absence of a really angsty mosh pit was definitely noted!

If you’re looking for a band with the wow factor or something to talk about the morning after, I’d 100% recommend Pigsx7; their showmanship is a sight to behold - but if you’re one for truly appreciating a well put-together musical performance, I’d maybe give this a miss. If you’re looking for a scruffy Mackem post-punk band, look no further than Sunderland’s Roxy Girls.