LIVE REVIEW: THE PEARL HARTS + HOTWAX AT THE LOWER THIRD, LONDON 16/5/23

It’s a very rare occasion these days when I entertain the possibility of going to two gigs, one night after the other. The day after night 1-(watching Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers) I would be lying if I said I wasn’t knackered. On other occasions, I think I probably would have pulled out of a second night out, but ever since I fell in love with The Pearl Harts second album ‘Love Chaos’, I really couldn’t wait to see them live.

The Lower Third was another venue I was yet to visit, a cocktail bar with an underground club for live gigs. I felt like we were going into a secret club as we walked in, walking through corridors and down sets of stairs. The night was still young, so when we arrived the intimate venue was not that busy yet but as time ticked on, it slowly filled up. The audience seemed to be mainly thirty somethings and up, and oddly it seemed like there was an abundance of older men. For such an inspiring female duo, that felt really surprising!

I had seen the support act- Hastings based band HotWax before, last year at the awesome Loud Women Fest, so although are certainly a great band, my tiredness won out, so I had a little sit down during their set. I wanted to preserve my energy for The Pearl Harts as I just had a feeling they were going to be fantastic.

I was not wrong! In fact, I would say they were fantastic ten(or perhaps more a rock n roll eleven)? more times than I’d even imagined. The set was a mix of their two albums, kicking off with ‘Baby Chaos’ from Love, Chaos. My friends and I had managed to squeeze ourselves down to the front and to the side of the stage, bang below a speaker, and almost opposite drummer Sara Leigh. Certainly not a bad spot at all, but I did find it a little frustrating that the majority of the front row seemed to be taken up by the older men! I was very happy when the band seemed to acknowledge this, and asked that women and non binary came to the front. Of course there was no way I was missing this opportunity! I grabbed my friends and centre stage we went!

I am still to get my hands on a copy of The Pearl Harts first album ‘Glitter and Spit’ so I wasn’t familar with the songs from that album, but I think they played about half from ‘Love Chaos’. They played some of my favourites including ‘Wild Me’ and ‘Gold’, there were others I’d have loved to have heard, but the songs I hadn’t heard sounded awesome too! The performance from the band was pure rock n roll, unbelievable incredible sound from a duo. They oozed cool and had all the swagger of any male rock band.

One of the sweetest moments was when they came out to do their encore, saying it was their first ever encore…and then proceeded to rock us even harder with the almost Rage Against the Machine like song ‘Black Blood’. My friends and I walked out of the gig in a haze afterwards, completely blown away by this grrrl powered rock revolution we had witnessed. Even today, the day after the gig, my friend text me saying ‘I’m still not over how good it was!”

This may have possibly been my gig of the year so far, my only regret is how did I not find these awesome women sooner?