As the South Wales Valleys descended on the capital (and I mean ALL of the The Valleys), for an afternoon of rugby capped off with some Merthyr riffs courtesy of one of the most talked about trios in the Welsh rock scene.
The final gig on what was an extensive tour, the night of local music at Cardiff's best venue started with Black Lakes (6), a band I enjoy on record but live I found that their music sort of just washed over me without much of an impact. They've got the style and swagger but the songs all hung around as they were too similar, maybe it was that perhaps they didn't fit in on this bill. Still they got a pretty big crowd considering that the majority there were only for the headliners, playing this show after supporting South Of Salem whom I'm sure they fit in a little better with stylistically.
Next was James And The Cold Gun (6) again great record but a little lacklustre when it came to playing in Cardiff. I've seen them before, before their debut album was released and they were better then, the songs basically delivered as if it was early Manics, with a punk edge and a confidence that was only exceeded by the headliners. Unfortunately it was but style over substance, the major issue I had was that they bill themselves as 'South Wales Loudest' and the set was really quiet, like, I could hear people's conversations over them play, quiet. Again they had a crowd who were very supportive, but maybe it was final show hitches.
Still hopefully the band who have had one of the most meteoritic rises in rock would cap off the night with a bit more positivity? I haven't seen Florence Black (7) since their debut EP and from what I remember they play riffy hard rock, with some raw vocals and a couple of ballads thrown in, even in those early days the talent was obvious as was the swagger. Since then they have had two more EP's and two full length albums, cementing their place on various festivals around the UK, gaining a massive and by the looks of how much merch was there, incredibly partisan fanbase, who cheered every song, sung every chorus and drank every drink available to have a jolly good Saturday party.
Now Florence Black do play well, they're slick, confident to the point of cocky and had the advantage of a home country crowd, but again to my ears they play songs that all sorts of sound the same, they came to the sixth song in the set and honestly I thought they had played two or three. It's a standard blueprint but a successful one. Only really Breadfan stands out which of course is a cover of Wales' greatest power trio. The rock radio friendly stuff is not normally my thing but I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the band I saw play decent hard rock back in 2015, to see if anything had changed.
I get why they're so popular, playing anthemic blue collar rock n roll is bound to appeal to a mass audience but it's still not my greatest love.
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