We spent our Saturday night at Oslo in Hackney watching indie band Pentire play a sold out show that rounded off their largest headline tour to date. Pentire, consisting of Jack Morgan (vocals), Owen Seymour (guitar), Jake Weaver (drums) and Jacob Beswetherick (bass), are a four-piece from Herefordshire who came together at university and have been producing music ever since. Their sound feels simultaneously fresh yet familiar to all indie lovers and instantly makes you want to sing along.
Although the venue still felt intimate, the band have doubled the capacity of venues this tour compared to their previous headline and the hype in the crowd reflected this. A queue of excited fans hurried upstairs into the live music room as soon as doors opened and the crowd continued to fill out the room over the next hour, ranging from young teenagers with their parents to a group of what we can only describe as grown up hipsters.
Fellow Herefordshire band ‘The Pedals’ opened the night, a feel good indie opener that exceeded our expectations. They played a short setlist of originals and a cover of Catfish and the Bottlemen’s ‘7’ (which is always a hit with us!). The second opener was Mitch Sanders, a singer songwriter who provided impressive vocals and emotional lyrics accompanied on stage by a drummer and guitarist.
As soon as Pentire took the stage, the excited buzz that filled the air erupted into an electricity that lasted throughout the set. Despite being the final date of a tightly scheduled tour, the band delivered a high energy performance with a seventeen song setlist spanning their discography from first releases to their latest EP, ‘Love on TV’. They opened with the titular song to this EP which instantly had the crowd singing along, before progressing straight into ‘Times Change (So Do I), another upbeat single from Love on TV. The setlist expertly intermixed high energy classics such as ‘Get Up’ and ‘Best Friend’s House’ with slower songs such as ‘Being Underwater’, with the band reminiscing to the crowd the backstory of writing this song in a university kitchen feeling all the emotions of being away from home. They ended the set with ‘Spinning’, one of our personal favourites that had the crowd dancing and singing at the top of their lungs.
Pentire have a talent for making the crowd feel special, playing one of their earlier releases ‘Belly Dancer’ as a response to fan requests in their Instagram messages and frequently thanking the crowd for being there. There was a shared feeling amongst the audience that the show and the tour leading up to it meant a lot to the band, reinforced by the band’s request to have a group photo with the crowd at the end of the show. The gig left us smiling and our ears ringing (in the best way), feelings definitely shared by the rest of the attendees. Fans on the train home were clinging to newly bought merch, setlists and guitar picks as souvenirs to remember the night.
If you aren’t already familiar with Pentire we recommend you check them out, and even better catch them live too! The band are set for a big year so look out for them on festival line-ups this summer and keep an eye on their socials for more shows this autumn. If the crowd enthusiasm, band stage presence and energy in their songs are anything to go by we are sure Pentire are headed for much bigger stages.
We had a chat with Pentire prior to the show so stay tuned for our interview with the band coming out in the upcoming days.