My Swn started in the Murrenger in Newport. I’d totally forgotten that the rugby was on and that the train station would be a living hell so went to the pub and got drunk. Unfortunately this led to me getting to Cardiff late and missing both Stray Borders and Threatmanics. I’m a bad human being.
So, first band that I saw on Friday night was Rolo Tomassi. Can’t say I’m a massive fan of the album but was thinking they’d be a good live band and even included them in my recommended band posts. Maybe I was missing the point but having an attractive girl growling like a wilderbeast with toothache over some interesting signature changes does not a good band make.
A quick dash upstairs got me in to see Clinic whilst other people were left outside unable to gain entry. A slight down point to the festival but I guess you just need to prioritise. Or speak nicely to the people on the door so that they let you back in. Clinic were great in their droney, mask wearing crazy keyboard way so balanced the good/bad festival band scales. Unfortunately their good work was undone by Casiokids in Kaz Bar, I think I may be too old and not have trendy enough hair to like any band with the word ‘kids’ in their name.
Friday over, 2-1 to the bad bands and room for improvement.
Saturday was much better, after watching Cardiff City make hard work of beating Crystal Palace I headed to Howard Gardens for the Loose all-dayer. I managed to catch Aiden Smith who didn’t exactly rock my world world but was charming enough and had a really good last song. Next up were The Boy Least Likely To who were great. Loads of them playing loads of instruments, at least one was playing a banjo shaped like an electric guitar. They’d be the ideal band to be on stage as you crawl out of your tent bleary eyed, hungover to shit at a festival. They put a smile on my face with their folky indie and made the prospect of going outside and legging it to town more bearable. I feel bad about putting Aiden Smith in the bad column but my system is very black and white. 3-2 bad guys.
Clwb for Joy Formidable who were ace. I found out afterwards that they used to be called Sidecar Kisses and had played at Joy. Nice to know. pretty doll like front woman playing loud squalling shoegazey guitar. Very epic and sometimes pretty angry sounding. All very good and was enjoying them immensely until Owain started singing Nancy Boy at me and pointed out she sounded like Brian Molko. She didn’t. She fucking didn’t. 3-3.
Quick trip across the street to see Truckers Of Husk in Kaz Bar. Very good math rock epic guitar stuff and go into the good column even though I only stayed for about 3 songs. Very good sound in Kaz Bar but if you wanted to actually see the band you had to be on stage with them.
Strolled to Barfly to watch Amazing Baby. I’d previously heard one song and thought it sounded pretty good, this was to be misleading. Their singer came onstage in his own band’s t-shirt which is just plain wrong. Their second song was about ‘drugs’ and as they’d not been to Wales before (they’re American) they felt the need to point out that Cardiff had loads of hot chicks. Honestly, they were wank. For the record they sounded like a more hippy Killers without the tunes. 20 minutes of my life I’m never getting back and I wish I’d watched Flashguns instead. 4-4.
Back to Clwb for Cats In Paris who I wasn’t sure about going by their myspace but they were lovely. I think Saesneg coined the phrase ‘Speed Twee’ in his Twitter post. Sort of like a less frenetic Bearsuit. Girl/boy vocals, lots of keyboards, a bit of violin and a bassist that may well have been kidnapped and bundled out of a van straight on to the stage. He looked totally baffled by everything and didn’t seem to know where he was. This was incredibly funny after a few beers. 5-4 to the side of good.
Sunday. The day I’d been looking forward to. Sunday was loud day. Barfly was where it began. I got there just in time for Picture Books In Winter who weren’t on because it was running 45 minutes late. Instead I had to listen to Friends Electric. I wasn’t totally offended by them after the first song which sounded almost identical to the Cooper Temple Clause. After that it was all too samey and I was really willing them to finish. Eventually they did and Picture Books In Winter took to the stage. I really liked their punky/shouty/folk but I have to admit that my fellow JCers weren’t taken by them. Fuck them though, it’s my review. Evil losing 6-5.
Tubelord. It was the fourth time I’ve seen them this year, you can probably tell I like them. Jerky guitar, shouty vocals that could change to falsetto choruses in the blink of an eye, rumbling bass and massively chatty drummer make this band rather special. They stormed into a temporary lead in the best band of the festival league table and extended the good band’s lead to 7-5. Things could only go downhill, luckily they didn’t bother though, instead Dananananakroyd bounced onto stage and tore the place apart. The all singing all dancing Glaswegians orchestrated a crowd cuddle and a mock wedding in between bounding all over the Barfly belting out their infectious brand of spikey punk rock. My housemate thought that at various times they sounded like early Idlewild and Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi, as I really like both those bands, I didn’t bother arguing. Band of the festival, band of the year.
Quick jog to Clwb to see Right Hand Left Hand (or Mark Wright Hand Left Andy Gray – don’t ask). A drummer and a guitarist that sound balls all like The White Stripes and more like The Fucking Champs, Telstar Ponies and occasionally Shellac. Noisey, layered post rock that I enjoyed immensely.
Another visit to Kaz Bar to see Tubelord’s label mates Pulled Apart By Horses. I was pretty much on the stage for this one, doing my best to get in the way of photographers. The band are a combination of the post punk load angular guitar of the last two Barfly bands I saw and oddly, Deep Purple. There were definitely flashes of Classic Rock in there. I’m pretty sure I liked them despite this. Would like to have watch more but needed to dash back to Clwb to get back in for Future Of The Left. As it happened we caught a bit of Agaskodo Teliverek, piss only knows what they were all about. The were from Hungary and reduced the bad band deficit to 10-6. The final band of the festival were the jewel in Cardiff’s crown, Future Of The Left. Upstairs was heaving and they played Suddenly It’s A Folk Song which gets a thumbs up from me. As usual there wasn’t a whole lot of heckling in Cardiff, presumably because a lot of the crowd don’t want to risk seeing Falco in Tesco and have to hide behind a tower of tinned beans. New song The Hope That House built went down really well and the audience actually seemed more enthusiastic than the one at their own show a few months back. A great end to a great festival. We then all went to Buffalo Bar, realised it was full of bastards and went home instead. Viver’s description of it as a ‘braying cuntfest’ on his Twitter post was one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.
A final score then, of Good 11-6 Evil. Congratulations the good guys (copyright Marc Anthony Real). See you all next year.
