Pendulum steal the show at T '08

By Kev Geoghegan
Radio 1 music reporter in Balado

Love them or loathe them, Pendulum have stolen the show at yet another summer festival.

Thousands of fans crammed into King Tut's Wah Wah Hut at T in the Park in Scotland.

With the sun shining outside, the temperature was soaring inside the tent.

The searing heat caused several fans in the front row to pass out and be treated by first aiders.

The Aussie drum and bass metal band have already played show stopping performances at the Download Festival at Donington Park and Radio 1's Big Weekend in Maidstone.

Pendulum set list Intro Showdown Voodoo People Propane Nightmares Blood Sugar The Other Side Slam Granite

To say the band were looking forward to this gig would be understatement of the century.

"The word mental was invented here in Scotland," drummer Kodish told Newsbeat before the set.

Giggling with nervous energy, bassist Gareth McGrillen added: "I feel like doing back flips."

While the crowd were literally warming up inside the tent, the band were psyching themselves up backstage.

MC Ben Mount was pacing and jumping around outside their dressing room, while drummer Kodish was battering anything in sight with his sticks.

As they took to the stage for the intro, the noise was deafening, with the crowd chanting the weekend's refrain: 'Here we, here we, here we ****** go'.

There was absolutely no break in the set as they played through a set made up of tracks from their debut top three album, In Silico.

By the time they reached the hit single Propane Nightmares, the band had the entire tent eating out of their hands.

Mount left singer Rob Swire to it and danced around behind the back curtain before re-emerging for Blood Sugar.

Pendulum played at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Maidstone, Kent

But for every vocal fan of the band, and there were lots, there are critics who are equally as vocal.

Pendulum seem to straddle the worlds of metal and dance but while some people regard that with admiration, it makes them an easy target.

Also, Mount's constant MC speak which punctuates most of the tracks can irritate people.

But McGrillen insists they won't change their sound for anyone.

He said: "The ones that are p****d off at what we do will still be p****d off.

"But people still seem to like it."

Kodish added: "It's like we created a monster, some kind of Frankenstein kid that is metal but is also a sub bass freak."

He seemed to miss the point of the classic horror tale, particularly in the fact that the monster eventually turns on his maker.

"They do throw a lot of things at us," he admitted.

And there were more than a few glow sticks flying through the air as the band rounded off their set with Granite.

As they finally left the stage drenched in sweat, Kodish grinned as he passed by: "Another day at the office."