Ahh Sundays. A day for roasted foods, warm fireplaces, and finding religion by spending most of the day on your knees.
Or on this Sunday, a day to find your way to the centre of Cardiff to go see three American bands at the CIA/Utilita Arena/Whatever it is called this week.
So to Cardiff we did descend, arriving just in time for the ever wonderful Ayron Jones (8) who did what he does so well and brought a tremendous slab of blues-n-roll to open the evening, providing a perfectly succinct, six song, setlist of his best tunes. Highlights of his 25 minutes included the wonderful Filthy, which is a true anthem for spending a Sunday on ones knees as mentioned above, and his breakout single Take Me Away which closed matters perfectly. The passion his band have for what they do is palpable as the bassist bounces around the stage like a cross between Flea and Flavor Flav, and it's great to see. It was pretty well known in advance that the show was some margin off from a setlist and sadly this did mean Mr Jones was playing to a pretty small audience with such an early start, which as is usually the case with the venue meant the sound struggled to carry, but a fine way to start the evening.
Next on the menu for the evening was Skillet (7). I make no bones about the fact that I don't actually like Skillet's music. I have always found them to be incredibly generic, musically formulaic, lyrically bland and just not my cup of tea at all, so this is a tricky one to review as at times I felt like I was more enduring Skillet than enjoying them. However, it wasn't lost on me at all that a good proportion of people had turned out for the Memphis based band and whilst musically I felt they dragged on I can't deny the show was an upbeat one which so many present enjoyed, and the musicianship was top-tier for the style of rock they deliver. Skillet deliver their songs with a religious passion, in-keeping with their Christian-Rock roots and the majority of the crowd sung along with gusto. For me, however, the devil always has the best tunes, but John Cooper and co did a good job, despite not being the band for my ears.
And so we come to our main course for the evening as Kentucky's native sons Black Stone Cherry (9) took to the stage. Last time they played Cardiff was on the co-headline tour with The Darkness which I also attended and I felt was a poor move for BSC, as any band following Justin Hawkins' lot are going to have a tough time and Black Stone Cherry suffered that fate, coming across as pretty dull after the party which preceded them. Thankfully this time no such issues occur as they bring a take-no-prisoners approach to the stage. Opening up with Me And Mary Jane they bring a high tempo blues-rock energy which very quickly gets bodies grooving throughout the venue and sets the stage for a really well balanced setlist which really is the best of the band.
There are too many bangers in the setlist to pick out individual songs but a wonderful cover of The Cult's American Horse, with both Ayron Jones and John Cooper joining Chris Robertson on vocals, did feel like a pretty special moment to enjoy (it also helped that I had seen the Cult perform this themselves just two weeks prior, so hearing three bands do such a passionate cover of it was brilliantly fitting).
The main setlist was punctuated with the ideal trilogy of White Trash Millionaire, Lonely Train and, of course, Blame It On The Boom Boom (which needed a second go to get through due to a few punters deciding that they wanted a proper boom-boom by engaging in a fist fight close to the barrier) left only an encore of Peace Is Free with Chris Robertson venturing into the crowd to join the singalong.
Overall a successful evening in Wales' capital was had, and when Black Stone Cherry come back to our shores in the next few years I can strongly recommend picking up a ticket to anybody with ears.
So to Cardiff we did descend, arriving just in time for the ever wonderful Ayron Jones (8) who did what he does so well and brought a tremendous slab of blues-n-roll to open the evening, providing a perfectly succinct, six song, setlist of his best tunes. Highlights of his 25 minutes included the wonderful Filthy, which is a true anthem for spending a Sunday on ones knees as mentioned above, and his breakout single Take Me Away which closed matters perfectly. The passion his band have for what they do is palpable as the bassist bounces around the stage like a cross between Flea and Flavor Flav, and it's great to see. It was pretty well known in advance that the show was some margin off from a setlist and sadly this did mean Mr Jones was playing to a pretty small audience with such an early start, which as is usually the case with the venue meant the sound struggled to carry, but a fine way to start the evening.
Next on the menu for the evening was Skillet (7). I make no bones about the fact that I don't actually like Skillet's music. I have always found them to be incredibly generic, musically formulaic, lyrically bland and just not my cup of tea at all, so this is a tricky one to review as at times I felt like I was more enduring Skillet than enjoying them. However, it wasn't lost on me at all that a good proportion of people had turned out for the Memphis based band and whilst musically I felt they dragged on I can't deny the show was an upbeat one which so many present enjoyed, and the musicianship was top-tier for the style of rock they deliver. Skillet deliver their songs with a religious passion, in-keeping with their Christian-Rock roots and the majority of the crowd sung along with gusto. For me, however, the devil always has the best tunes, but John Cooper and co did a good job, despite not being the band for my ears.
And so we come to our main course for the evening as Kentucky's native sons Black Stone Cherry (9) took to the stage. Last time they played Cardiff was on the co-headline tour with The Darkness which I also attended and I felt was a poor move for BSC, as any band following Justin Hawkins' lot are going to have a tough time and Black Stone Cherry suffered that fate, coming across as pretty dull after the party which preceded them. Thankfully this time no such issues occur as they bring a take-no-prisoners approach to the stage. Opening up with Me And Mary Jane they bring a high tempo blues-rock energy which very quickly gets bodies grooving throughout the venue and sets the stage for a really well balanced setlist which really is the best of the band.
There are too many bangers in the setlist to pick out individual songs but a wonderful cover of The Cult's American Horse, with both Ayron Jones and John Cooper joining Chris Robertson on vocals, did feel like a pretty special moment to enjoy (it also helped that I had seen the Cult perform this themselves just two weeks prior, so hearing three bands do such a passionate cover of it was brilliantly fitting).
The main setlist was punctuated with the ideal trilogy of White Trash Millionaire, Lonely Train and, of course, Blame It On The Boom Boom (which needed a second go to get through due to a few punters deciding that they wanted a proper boom-boom by engaging in a fist fight close to the barrier) left only an encore of Peace Is Free with Chris Robertson venturing into the crowd to join the singalong.
Overall a successful evening in Wales' capital was had, and when Black Stone Cherry come back to our shores in the next few years I can strongly recommend picking up a ticket to anybody with ears.
No comments:
Post a Comment