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On this day, 27 July 1992, alternative rock band Pop Will Eat Itself played the Cardiff Bay Summer Festival.
Formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country.
Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorporate sample-driven indie and industrial rock. Their highest-charting single was the 1993 top-ten hit "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!".
They released three successful albums on RCA. The first two (…This is This! and Cure for Sanity) were recorded with the aid of Flood, known for his work with Nine Inch Nails, U2 and Depeche Mode.
The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, and US, including appearances at Reading Festival. Their singles charted progressively higher, with every single release charting inside the UK Top Forty from 1990 until their final single release in 1994.
On 1992's The Looks or the Lifestyle? the band recruited John "Fuzz" Townshend as their drummer to complement their standard array of loops and pre-programmed drums. The band had discussed adding a live drummer in 1990, however touring commitments made it impractical to do so until the band were able to break touring activity in late 1991 to commence recording.
The album peaked at UK No. 15 and featured the Top 30 hit singles "Karmadrome" and "Bulletproof!" Despite healthy sales and successful widescale touring the band's biggest supporters at RCA had left the company by January 1993 and the remaining executives did not understand the band or their music, suggesting at one meeting that EMF 'write a hit' for them.
The band was dropped from the label before the "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!" single was released. It went on to peak at number 9 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's biggest hit and making the band at that time the highest charting act to appear on Top of the Pops without a record deal. In an attempt to recoup their investment, the label released a live album Live at Weird's Bar and Grill recorded in London in October 1992.
