Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea: 'Pigs x7, we salute you' | Review

As its final cannon shots boom out, the Tynesiders take to the stage, and my word do they do their damnedest to live up to the rock gods’ exhortation.

They are the loudest band I have heard in The Wedge in a while – this isn’t just music you can hear as much as you can feel it running through you and over you like a steamroller. John-Michael Joseph Hedley’s bass vibrates in your bones while Sam Grant and Adam Ian Sykes’ riffs pummel you senseless. Not to mention the blistering guitar solos. And it is glorious.

Performing in vest and shorts and writhing around the stage, frontman Matthew Baty looks like he is limbering up for a bout in a wrestling ring. He is a commanding focal point for the band.

Black Sabbath and the desert/stoner rock scene of the 1990s are obvious musical touchstones, but the five-piece bring plenty of their own psychedelic doom-mongering to the party.

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After ripping through the first three songs back-to-back Baty pauses to talk and tells us they aren’t really here, we’re watching holograms while they’re at home watching Peep Show. He later tells us they’ve been to America where they’ve secured investment for the hologram scheme from faded comedian Pauly Shore, Trump-associated pornstar Stormy Daniels and a wrestler known as ‘Daddy Ass’. It all adds a slyly surreal element to proceedings.

The 10-song set draws heavily on new album Land of Sleeper – recent single Ultimate Hammer is a highlight. When it comes to the final song, A66 from 2018’s King of Cowards, Baty says not to worry, it’s a long one. And it is indeed a bone-rattling epic, galloping to the finish line.

The band were a surprise hit when they performed early afternoon on the main stage at Victorious Festival in 2021, and the appetite to see them back in the city again was clearly high – this gig sold out swiftly. Now that we have a rock/metal festival in the city in the shape of Takedown, what would it take to get them riding high on the mainstage there next year?

Pigs x7, we salute you.