To think I nearly went to watch Graham Parker in Bristol instead of sampling Day 2.
No offence to Mr Parker, but it was without doubt the right choice. Another fantastic night out.
Womex 2013, Day 1
Womex 2013 is a trade fair/shindig for people who work in the world music industry to get together to swap tips, check each other out and, I imagine, like all these things slap each other on the back.
Each of the three days of the festival ends with about 15 acts playing a 45-minute set at one of five stages. Three are in the Millennium Centre in Cardiff’s Docks. Two are in the Pabell (tent) outside.
The timings mean you can only catch five acts per night. Night one was a cracker.
PiL, Bristol
Mr Rotten must have a soft spot for Bristol – it’s the third visit to the city in three years.
The city’s punk credentials are impeccable. Nearly all the punk and post-punk, art-punk and new wave bands which re-form are guaranteed an up-for-it audience who can’t get enough of reliving their glory days.
Amanda Palmer, O2 Academy, Bristol
Strange to go to a gig these days where most of the men are still in possession of their hair. That was the first striking thing about this concert.
The other one was this song – a new one by Amanda Palmer – which was absolutely mesmerising. Wouldn’t have thought a voice and a ukelele accompaniment could have produced such an astounding effect. Audience were open-mouthed in wonder and many came close to tears.
The Fall, Globe, Cardiff
Sour. Bitter. Misanthropic. That’s just me, on the day I learnt redundancy was not just looming but appears to be a near-certainty some time later this summer.
James Taylor Quartet, RWCMD, Cardiff
Cheesy choons from the last of the Hammond heroes. Pleasure to see JTQ after what must be 15 years. Last time probably in Brighton’s Concorde club or the Brighton Centre.
Still dapper in mod three-piece suit behind his big black monster of an organ. Still inspired by Jimmy Smith, who has died since the last time I saw this band, which makes him pretty much the remaining torch-bearer of Hammond organ music. Only one I’m vaguely aware of anyway.
About 250 people in the Dora Stoutzker theatre at the immensely impressive RWCMD’s swanky new base.
Praxis Makes Perfect
Another National Theatre Wales stormer – blending music with theatre, mixing a rock star with luvvies on a night full of delights.
Freaky deaky Dakh
If this collection of curveball Kyiv kooks and crazies isn’t the best girl band on the planet then my name’s Yuliya Tymoschenko and I demand to be let out of clink.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen such an awe-inspiring show. It was billed as фрiк кабаре – freak-cabaret – and that would seem about right.
In a dark, dank, dilapidated den of a venue seven soulful sisters systematically smashed out a brilliant mix of melancholy gloom and soaring hypnotic vocals and acted out the songs they sang.
Hail Cale
The grandaddy of Welsh rock showed age is no barrier to brilliance.
John Cale won’t be going gently into the good night on this evidence – he’s a peroxide blond at 70 (to fit in with the surfers in LA where he lives perhaps?) – and he’s a leading a testosterone-fuelled monster of band.
Manic Street Preacher James Dean Bradfield was among the audience at the Coal Exchange to witness what evolved into a startlingly good show.
With Cale on keyboards, the four-piece band – the rest of the group were half his age – started slowly with new numbers from the album Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood being interesting rather than compelling.
It got a lot more exciting when he switched to guitar and a spellbinding rendition of Helen of Troy swirled us on to a different planet. It howled with fury, an absolute tour de force.
From that moment you forgot that this guy – the genius whose work with Lou Reed made the not-very-popular-at-the-time Velvet Underground in the 60s influenced thousands of bands – could be drawing a UK pension.
The band grew in confidence, the pace was relentless and tracks like Whaddya Mean By That and Perfection were perfectly pitched. Hard and loud, but melodic.
By the end Grandad John, who, let’s be honest, doesn’t smile too easily, was grinning. He was dripping in sweat – his cotton jacket was soaked through after a tough 90 minutes. There was no gasping for breath or concession to advancing years. I bet this uncompromising, peroxided pensioner even fancied a bit of crowd-surfing. It was an absolutely astounding performance and homecoming.
He may not have had a hit record you can name, or an easily recognisable public persona. But he is one of Wales’s national treasures.
The boy from Carmarthenshire, whose mother tongue was Welsh, signed off with – nice touch – ‘Nos da’.
‘Nos da’ wasn’t the half of it, this was very, very good night indeed.
Scritti Politti, Bristol Thekla
No way are Scritti even close to the top of my favourites but this was definitely the best gig I’ve been to this year.
A really welcome and unexpected surprise, it swept by in just over an hour but features some of the sweetest vocals I’ve ever heard. Sound quality was one of the best I’ve witnessed, vocals to the fore and Green Gartside can sing like an angel – always good to see that in person rather than wonder whether his recorded vocals have been souped up in the studio. I figured his 50-something voicebox might have lost its winsome charm and, as is so often the case, get drowned out by the band.
But it was intimate, soulful and affecting. Thekla acoustics and, presumably, a great job by the sound engineer meant that every utterance, every word, was audible in this cosy little boat venue.
Given I was so-so about Songs to Remember back in the 80s, most of its songs sounded note perfect and it’s certainly grown on me.
Liked the between-song tale of ‘Sweetest Girl’. He offered the song as a joint venture to Kraftwerk and Gregory Isaacs. Isaacs was up for it but Kraftwerk were not.
Then, while hanging out with two Kraftwerk members in New York in the early 80s he broached the subject with the them tentatively, receiving a Germanic response; “We did get the song – we HATE reggae!”
PiL, Bristol
Enter Johnny.
Opening remark: “Bristol . . . country life . . . (leering) do you want to see my knob of butter?”
So, in a good mood from the off, makes a change. Definitely the least angry performance of the five times I’ve seen him in two-and-a-half years, Mr Lydon showed us fleeting glimpses of occasional serenity, pleased that the mission to show PiL at their best and create new songs (which I’ve not heard) has paid off.
But he’ll never be a pussycat. The line from Coriolan/us the other night comes to mind – ‘Anger is my meat’.
He snarled bullyingly at a security guard for walking in front of the stage, pretty unfairly and nastily I thought, but that was about it.
Set was pretty similar to the shows from late 2009 onwards – starting with This is not a Love Song, Albatross heading to Flowers of Romance, and all the usual suspects. Back in 2010 here he was riled about the pro-Palestinian protest outside the venue and it showed and he was red with rage to the extent that it seemed his concentration was affected (next night at Oxford they played the same set only better).
This time we got a more settled performance, mature even. Very similar to the previous shows of the past couple of years so fewer surprises and peaks. Still very worthwhile though.
Psychedelic Furs, Bristol
Memo to self: remember to pack earplugs in future.
Not because it’s too loud but because bands actually sound better now when I put my fingers in my ears. I pick up the full sound, with more treble, all songs sound cohesive and no instrument goes missing. Is this normal?
Anyway, good to see the Fab Furs back in carrot-crunch land, nearly two years after they played a great gig in Frome.
That night sax player Mars Williams stole the show with a supreme performance. Blew his pipe so hard he looked fit to pop, and the penny dropped – it pinpointed why the first two Furs albums stood out at the time – the sax gave them a different sonic texture. Hadn’t spotted that before!
Here, even though I was two yards from him at the front of the audience you couldn’t hear him well until you retreated towards the back. He wasn’t the centrepiece of the show this time due to the Fleece acoustics.
Still, it was a pleasure to see him, plenty of life in Mars – wikipedia states a strong influence is John Coiltrane so what’s not to like.
Richard Butler’s cracked croak still has a peculiar charm. He was wearing Frank Carson specs with bifocal lenses that made his eyes, close up, resemble those of an alligator, half-closed and watchful. But, fair dos, he still has the teeth and hair of a twentysomething. Brother Tim on bass looked like a beefy John Cale as leant over the front row.
Richard bobbed up and down like a toddler in a baby bouncer and delivered a cracked croon for the highpoint Imitation of Christ – 30-plus years old. Into You like a Train, So Run Down and Mr Jones provided early pep that somewhat lost its way once later stuff – which I’m not so keen on – was aired.
It all ended quite well with India, my favourite track, before I had to hotfoot it to the train station, missing the encores.
Please come to Wales next time.
Miles from Nowhere 