On this day, 4 August 2006, North Wales rockers The Alarm played Cardiff’s Big Weekend festival.
Formed in Rhyl, Wales, in 1981. Initially formed as a punk band, The Toilets, in 1977, under lead vocalist Mike Peters, the band soon embraced rock and included marked influences from Welsh language and culture.
By opening for acts such as U2 and Bob Dylan, they became a popular new wave pop band of the 1980s.
The Alarm's highest charting single in Britain was 1983's "Sixty Eight Guns", which reached number 17 in the UK Singles Chart. Their 1984 album, Declaration, which contained "Sixty Eight Guns", peaked at number six in the UK Albums Chart.
In 2006, the new version of Alarm MM++ released a second studio album, Under Attack. It spawned another UK Top 30 hit, "Superchannel".
In 2008 A third studio album entitled Guerrilla Tactics was released. The Alarm's song "Sixty Eight Guns" has been featured in a Heineken television advertisement in the U.S. In April, 2008 Sharp launched his own version of the band, AOR – Spirit of The Alarm, to showcase the band's American set lists from the late 1980s.
