LIVE FROM THE PIT: PANIC SHACK, THE PILL

Tucked away in the Patterns basement was Panic Shack’s sold out date on the Brighton leg of their debut album’s tour, accompanied with Isle of Wight punks The Pill for a concise evening of Riot Grrl realness. 

To get it out the way: though many Brighton residents seem to love Patterns for their clubbing and raving needs, it's hard to see its appeal especially as a live music space, mainly due to the large pillar dead centre in the space that obstructs the view of a ballpark 30% of the room’s capacity. This of course meant that there were dense pockets of gig goers in a fan shape around the obstruction, adding a claustrophobia to the windowless basement which impacted the ambience of the evening overall. At least they’ve finally put toilet seats on the toilets, though. 

Anyway - the room was slowly filled with primarily millennial and younger gen Xers as opener The Pill’s set crept closer. Their half an hour set opened with Scaffolding Man, a cheeky track about accidently flashing/having a crush on the builder across the road, followed up with Salt Father, an anti-sugar daddy anthem. As a trio The Pill came across as reserved but full of dry humor: “what we lack in intelligence we make up for in subtlety” followed with a bit about asking people if they’d heard of club penguin before assuring the crowd that everyone was in the same boat because the track was in fact about online grooming (club penguin boyfriend) coaxed a smile. Furthermore their penchant for hater anthems such as Money Mullet or the anti-leonardo dicaprio song gives a “I’ll address it in the music” vibe to the otherwise softly-spoken co-frontwomen that offers an opportunity for catharsis in dancing along with them. Overall, the set was well balanced between crack and tracks, and by closing track it was a shame that more of the room wasn’t jumping along with them. 

 About 30 minutes later, main event Panic Shack would introduce themselves to Patterns using Melchior Rietveldt’s anti-piracy soundtrack before launching into Gok Wan. The main thing to note about Panic Shack is that the energy between the Welsh women is immaculate; they danced among each other with smiles ear to ear as they traded riffs and vocals, able to balance the party they had among each other with coaxing a party out of their crowd. This bled well into the between-track crack, as they mused about the digital download lanyards that were totally their idea, starting a chant and creating a running joke with the crowd for the rest of the set; this culminated in a lovely story of one member giving a stranger the heimlich maneuver within two hours of them being on the road being the perfect excuse for the crowd to go pick one up. The embodiment of this was their first love song but written for each other; the “I’ll lie for you/I’ll die for you” hook as cheeky as it was resonant as the fun Panic Shack have together shone through. 

The setlist itself was well balanced with tracks from their yet-to-release debut album and their original hits. The Panic Shack sound is consistent in its hook based quickfire punk tracks, though it was pleasant to hear the development of their sound as they hopped between their latest project and previous releases; utilising longer instrumental breaks and playing with tempo a little more in the newer tracks added some extra depth to the work overall. The best of the set included I don’t really like it, Tit School and their debut single Who's got my Lighter? As well as closer The Ick - all jumpy and angry at the state of the world ready for a de-stress when witnessed live. 

Therefore it was a shame in the end how static the crowd was throughout the night. Bar a small ring at the barrier and the odd girl throughout the room did not move bar some respectful head bops. Maybe it was the heat in the Patterns basement or the fresh-from-work crowd but there was seldom a sing along and a chant had to be coaxed out of the room like blood from a stone. It was disheartening especially with the high energy performance that The Pill and Panic Shack had put on for Brighton in mind; hopefully 2000 Trees will treat Panic Shack better when they perform on their Wednesday billing. 

Panic Shack’s self titled debut album will be released on 18th July 2025, and will be on their Don’t Quit Your Day Job tour across the UK until May 28th. 

Review: Julia Brunton

Photos: Ewan McDonald