......from Roath
Gig 5 - 7th Sept 2021
Back to Cardiff and to where it started, The Globe to see not just one but three local bands. The gig should have been the second of three consecutive nights for me, unfortunately Elijah Wolf, who should have played at Clwb Ifor Bach on the 6th, cancelled a couple of dates after playing at On The Road festival The weekend before. A pity but I’m sure I’ll get to see the Bostonian at some point in the future. Back to The Globe, this one was a solo gig for me and I thought I’d make the effort to get there early to catch all three bands.
The gig was opened by FRAKARD, a three piece Drums/Guitar/Vocals combo and to be honest, I was a little sceptical at first. Were they going to be too contrived, too formulaic. But the sheer energy of frontman Ben Sawyer and the tight rhythm of the guitar and drums was great for an opening act. At one point Ben scales the PA stack to deliver a song - I mean 8:00pm on a Tuesday night, the opening act when the majority are there for the main band, you have to love that energy. OK, I felt they were still finding their own voice but that's the same of 95% of bands in their formative years. For the record, to me there was a lot of a Henry Rollins post Black Flag spoken word vibe combined with the musicality of Rage Against The Machine, I liked them, they made me like them and that's half the battle and this stage
Next up were WYNT, a five piece guitar driven band who describe themselves as Alt-rock on their Facebook bio. A term I always find slightly troubling as surely you are either pop or rock. For me …… pop means you are happy to keep churning out a derivative version of your last song especially if it was a commercial hit. Whereas rock means you are happy to keep on playing and creating, regardless of the commercial outcome. And it doesn’t matter to me if your’re Indie, Heavy, Alt, Lo-Fi the list goes on….but I digress. WYNT took me back, way back to my teenage days in Brynmawr. Our
Friday nights were mainly spent at the Sports and Social club of Dunlop Semtex, the biggest employer in the town. Friday night was band night and our favourite was a band called Rough ‘andfull, A classic valleys, covers, rock band. Their repertoire consisted of Sabbath, Heap, Man…you can see what I’m saying. I’m in no way being critical here or damning with faint praise, I really enjoyed my Friday night and really enjoyed WYNT. Energetic and tight, they are real crowd pleasers and again are prepared to work hard To make the gig happen. In the mould of the Stone Temple Pilots, there’s a lot of guitar interchange and heavy rock rhythms to drive it along. It‘s a sound i don’t turn off the radio but also not one that I actively seek. Though there is definitely a place for bands like WYNT and I hope they find a space for themselves.
Onto the main band HIMALAYAS, this is a band very much on the way up. A local band with a bigger reputation and an appropriately bigger attitude. Festival experience and radio airplay, the majority of the audience were here to see them and although a large proportion were parents and friends, it was a home gig and thats that’s allowed and it felt like a real post lockdown celebration. An exhalation of energy after what must have seemed like a lifetime of career on pause. The bonus was I felt nowhere near as old as I did at Twin Atlantic!!
Singer Joe Williams, snarled his way through the set, full of angst and emotion, striking the appropriate poses and thrashing his guitar to within an inch of its life. A lot of lockdown energy to expel and I can already see him taking on the Kelly Jones mantle of Welsh rock/pops leading frontman. The songs are catchy, the performance strong and entertaining, the musicality tight and powerful. I felt more than a touch of the 70's, Queen before it all went aria, Spiders looking for Mars as Mike Griffiths guitar lines pay homage to Brian May and Mick Ronson. A band on the march and I hope it takes them to the top of Everest. Sorry, couldn't resist that and glad they gave me reason to use it!
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