On This Day 19/05/2000 Paul Weller

On this day, 19 May 2000, The Modfather, Paul Weller played Cardiff International Arena.

The tour coincided with the April release of Weller’s fifth solo album ‘Heliocentric’ – his first since 1997’s ‘Heavy Soul’ which peaked at No. 2 on the UK Albums chart.

There were rumours at the time that Heliocentric would be Weller's final studio effort, but these proved unfounded when he released the No. 1 hit album Illumination in September 2002.

Weller was born on 25 May 1958 in Woking, Surrey, England, to John and Ann Weller (née Craddock). Although born John William Weller, he became known as Paul by his parents.

Weller's musical vocation was confirmed after seeing Status Quo in concert in 1972. He formed the first incarnation of the Jam in the same year, playing bass guitar with his best friends Steve Brookes (lead guitar) and Dave Waller (rhythm guitar).

Weller's father, acting as their manager, began booking the band into local working men's clubs. Joined by Rick Buckler on drums, and with Bruce Foxton soon replacing Waller on rhythm guitar, the four-piece band began to forge a local reputation, playing a mixture of Beatles covers and a number of compositions written by Weller and Brookes.

Brookes left the band in 1976, and Weller and Foxton decided they would swap guitar roles, with Weller now the guitarist.

Weller became interested in 1960s mod culture in late 1974, particularly after hearing 'My Generation' by the Who.

As a result, he began riding a Lambretta scooter, styling his hair like Steve Marriott and immersing himself in 1960s soul and R&B music.

At his instigation, the Jam began wearing mohair suits onstage and he and Foxton began playing Rickenbacker guitars (as favoured by the Who and the Beatles in the mid-1960s).

He has been a committed mod ever since, declaring in a 1991 interview that, "I'll always be a mod. You can bury me a mod".

Setlist

Friday Street

Out of the Sinking

Into Tomorrow

Back in the Fire

Dust and Rocks

Peacock Suit

Heavy Soul

(Parts 1 & 2)

With Time & Temperance

Frightened

You Do Something to Me

The Changingman

Porcelain Gods

There's No Drinking After You're Dead

As You Lean Into the Light

Broken Stones

Picking Up Sticks

Love-Less

Encore:

Wild Wood

Sunflower

All Images Subject To Copyright

On This Day 17/01/1974 Beck, Bogert & Appice

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 17th January 1974, rock super group, Beck,Bogert & Appice played Cardiff’s Top Rank.

Formed by legendary British guitarist Jeff Beck, evolving from the Jeff Beck Group. It included bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, Americans who had played together in Vanilla Fudge and Cactus.

The band had the previous year released their only album, the self-titled Beck, Bogert & Appice.

The album contains Beck's version of the song "Superstition" which was written by Stevie Wonder. Beck had appeared on Wonder's original recording of the song in 1972.

Beck, Bogert & Appice was released in both conventional 2-channel stereo and 4-channel quadraphonic versions. This was the band's only studio album, as Beck's departure forced a sudden dissolution in 1974.

Recording sessions for a second studio album began in January 1974.

On May 18, 1974, New Musical Express wrote "Rumours concerning an imminent split in BBA, which have been rife for several weeks, were confirmed by bassist Tim Bogert". Melody Maker also reported the breakup of the band at that time.

The band dissolved before the completion of a second studio album.

On this day 06/11/1985 Level 42

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On this day, 6 November 1985, jazz funk/pop band Level 42 played Cardiff University on their World Machine Tour.

The band had just released World Machine, their sixth studio album and the band's breakthrough album internationally and features one of their most successful singles, "Something About You".

This release marked a transition from their jazz-funk beginnings to the funky pop they are best known for - a transition which eventually resulted in the departure of drummer Phil Gould subsequent to the release of their follow up album Running in the Family.

Formed on the Isle of Wight in 1979. They had a number of UK and worldwide hits during the 1980s and 1990s.

Their highest-charting single in the UK was "Lessons in Love", which reached number three on the UK Singles Chart, and number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, upon its release in 1986.

An earlier single, "Something About You", was their most successful chart-wise in the United States, reaching number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Setlist

The Chinese Way

Love Games

World Machine

Turn It On

Kansas City Milkman

Heathrow

Leaving Me Now

The Chant Has Begun

Micro Kid

The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)

Something About You

Encore:

Hot Water

Are You Hearing (What I Hear)?

Remembering Eddie Van Halen

Charles Stylianou reflects on the life and career of Eddie Van Halen on behalf of KCL as the world still reflects on the loss of such a brilliant and influential musician.

We still struggle to believe that the virtuoso guitarist Eddie Van Halen, has died of cancer at age 65. It’s with a heavy heart his son Wolfgang, who became the band’s bassist when it reunited in 2007, announced the news on Twitter on Tuesday.

pic.twitter.com/kQqDV7pulR

— Wolf Van Halen (@WolfVanHalen) October 6, 2020

“I can’t believe I’m having to write this but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” he wrote.

“He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.”

He added:

“My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from this loss.”

“I love you so much, Pop.”

"Eddie Van Halen Shredding His Guitar @ 'Eruption' - Van Halen Concert" by Anirudh Koul is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Van Halen was born in Amsterdam in 1955 and raised in Pasadena, California idolising Eric Clapton, pioneered his own dynamic style. He was mostly modeled by a generation of guitarists, playing with both hands on the guitar 's neck.

"I'm doing whatever I want," he said in a 1978 Guitar Player interview.

"I just don't worry too much about it ... It's just pretty spontaneous."

The artist was an autodidact and classically trained pianist who could play most instruments but was unable to read music. After the group met while attending Pasadena City College, he formed the band together with his brother Alex, bassist Michael Anthony, and singer David Lee Roth in 1974.

Before breaking onto the rock scene in 1978 with their self-titled debut album, the band cut their teeth performing in West Hollywood clubs.  Eventually, it sold over 10 million copies as part of a hard rock surge that swept disco off the top of the charts.

"Van Halen Concert - Jumping to 'Jump'" by Anirudh Koul is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The band turned into one of the 20 best-selling artists of all time and released multi-platinum albums in five consecutive years:

Van Halen II (1979)

Women and Children First (1980)

Fair Warning (1981)

Diver Down (1982)

Their biggest hit album was Diver Down (1982) and included the hits Jump, Panama and Hot for Teacher. Apart from that, the guitarist applied the signature riff to Michael Jackson’s smash 1982 hit ‘Beat It.’

Twenty fifteen has been a tremendous year for Van Halen, as Rolling Stone rated him, behind Chuck Berry and Duane Allman, the eighth best guitar player of all time.

Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready commented on Van Halen’s playing for Rolling Stone. He described:

“He sounded like it came from another planet; was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.”

What a Long Great Trip It’s Been.. pic.twitter.com/M5pmkVi7hW

— David Lee Roth (@DavidLeeRoth) October 7, 2020

With a brief post on Twitter and a black-and-white photo of the pair together, Roth paid-tribute artist said:

"What a wonderful long trip it has been."

Over the decades-long tenure of the band, Van Halen fought various health problems. In 1999, he underwent hip replacement whereas a partial cancer removal of his tongue followed in 2000. Drug abuse and alcoholism problems led him to divorce from TV star Valerie Bertinelli in 2007. In parallel, he started a rehab stay, and reunited with Van Halen on bass with Wolfgang.

"Eddie Van Halen" by Alan Light is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Tribute-paid artists expressed their grief with beautiful messages.

"My heart is broken. Eddie was not only a guitar god, but a truly beautiful soul" 

Gene Simmons said.

Paul Stanley, Simmons' Kiss bandmate said that:

“he was a trailblazer and someone who really gave his music everything. A decent spirit, too.”

Despite everything, the most heart-touching message was heard by Lenny Kravitz who stated:

“Heaven will be electric tonight”

John Mayer also described Van Halen as:

"an incredibly good musician and composer. One of the motivating factors of my need to pick up a guitar was to look up to him as a young child. I was so blown away watching his instrument exercise such power and speech.”

Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe compared Van Halen’s playing to that of Mozart’s. She said:

"You changed our world." 

Lastly, Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler claimed that Van Halen was:

"one of the nicest, down to earth men I've ever met and toured with. A perfect gentleman and a true genius.”

Cancer has been a reason for all of us to remember Eddie’s beautiful personality. We sincerely wish his family well. May Eddie rest in peace.

Bibliography

Horton, A., 2020. Eddie Van Halen dies of cancer aged 65. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/06/eddie-van-halen-dead-age-65.

On This Day 1987 - David Bowie

A good concert and first time David did a concert in Wales
In 1987, David Bowie embarked on the The Glass Spider Tour in support of the album Never Let Me Down. The concert tour was the most ambitious by David Bowie surpassing the previous Serious Moonlight Tour in terms of audience figures and number of performances.
It has been estimated by the conclusion of the tour a total of three million people had attended beating his previous record set on the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour

Anyway this show is quite famous as it’s the first rock concert from this venue.
The second was from U2 a month later,and that’s another story.

The review

It was simply the biggest and best rock concert Wales has seen. A total of 50,000 people paid £750,000 to see a legend and it was worth every penny.

David Bowie, 40, fit and fantastic, sent the National Stadium in Cardiff wild with excitement with a set of hits, ancient and modern.

A taste of everything from Heroes from 1977 to Zeroes from his latest album, Never Let Me Down, echoed around a stadium more used to the hymns and arias of the rugby multitudes and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The goal posts at the East Terrace end were replaced with a vast stage enveloped by a giant spider which incorporated a series of looping and stretching antennae.

On either side masking the whole of the daunting 260- speaker cabinet sound system were huge scaffolding towers painted gold.

Suddenly the strains of the Hendrix classic Purple Haze, played incongruously on strings, broke the silence of expectation which had hushed the stadium.

Enter guitarist Carlos Alomar to evoke the huge spider to free its brood and a host of spider -dancers descend followed by the main man himself suspended in a silver throne, speaking on a telephone.

Clad in blood red Teddy-boy style suit he threw himself into new material – Glass Spider , Day In - Day Out – surrounded and almost submerged by superb dancers and video crew.

For Bang Bang, Bowie was joined by a Latin dancer, whose seemingly endless leg draped over his shoulder.

And all the while the spiders – now not of Mars – wound around the web of scaffolding, followed by the roving video cameras, which relayed the action to two giant screens either side of the stage.



Tour band 1987 – The Glass Spider Tour
• David Bowie – vocals, guitar
• Peter Frampton – guitar, vocals
• Charlie Sexton – guitar, backing vocals
• Carlos Alomar – guitar, backing vocals, music director
• Carmine Rojas – bass guitar
• Alan Childs – drums
• Erdal Kızılçay – keyboards, trumpet, congas, violin, backing vocals
• Richard Cottle – keyboards, saxophone, tambourine, backing vocals

Tour dancers
• Melissa Hurley
• Constance Marie
• Spazz Attack (Craig Allen Rothwell)
• Viktor Manoel
• Stephen Nichols
• Toni Basil (choreography)

Tour design
• Allen Branton – Lighting design
• Mark Ravitz – Set design
• Christine Strand – Video director

1. Purple Haze

   (The Jimi Hendrix Experience song)

2. Up the Hill Backwards

3. Glass Spider

4. Up the Hill Backwards

   (Reprise)

5. Day-In Day-Out

6. Bang Bang

   (Iggy Pop cover)

7. Absolute Beginners

8. Loving the Alien

9. China Girl

   (Iggy Pop cover)

10. Fashion

11. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

12. All the Madmen

13. Never Let Me Down

14. Big Brother

15. Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family

16. '87 and Cry

17. "Heroes"

18. Time Will Crawl

19. Beat of Your Drum

20. Sons of the Silent Age

21. Dancing With the Big Boys

22. Zeroes

23. Let's Dance

24. Fame

    Play Video

25. Encore:

26. Blue Jean

27. Modern Love

On this Day 16 June 1890 - Stan Laurel was born

On this Day Stan Laurel was born, 16 June 1890, 130 years ago.

The famous comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy topped the bill at Cardiff’s New Theatre in 1952 and received a tumultuous reception.

After making 100 films together the comedy pair came to Cardiff as part of a UK tour aimed at reviving their stardom. 

By the time they came to the UK, they were considered old men back in the USA as audiences turned to newer stars and television drew in millions

But in 1952 in Cardiff, Laurel and Hardy still had the magic to make grown men run down the street after them and make eating a bag of chips funny.

One south Wales man in particular was not to be outdone. He was a builder’s labourer, standing in the back of a swaying lorry with all his home- ward-bound labouring mates crushed round him.

The lorry was going down Park Place, then a through-road. It slowed down as it reached the Queen Street intersection and suddenly a brickie's mate called Haydn let out a howl. “Stan,” he bellowed. “Ollie.” And yes, miraculously, it was them - ambling up Park Place towards the New Theatre, disappointingly bereft of Bowler hats but still unmistakeable.

And at that point Haydn launched himself from the lorry, bounced down the road, and fetched up clinging to the right trouser leg of Mr. Norvell Hardy, Mr. Arthur Stanley Jefferson looking on, manfully restraining the urge to scrabble his fingers through his thinning thatch in that famous gesture which suggested total incomprehension.

The next day Haydn boarded the lorry for its trip to Llanbradach . He was bruised, his knees creaked, but he was euphoric. “I touched ‘em. They talked to me. Stan an’ Ollie, they talked to me.”

Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the greatest comedy team ever, but no tribute to their genius can ever have been more relevant than Haydn’s launch from the back of a lorry because he simply could not bear to let Stan and Ollie pass without paying homage.

In the history section of its website, the New Theatre records how: "In 1952, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, despite both being in their sixties, receive a wonderful reception from several generations of fans for their unique brand of slapstick comedy."

And the press still wanted to speak to them in Cardiff. Asked the secret of their comic genius by a South Wales Echo reporter who visited them in their New Theatre dressing room in 1952, Stan said: “People are fed up with looking at stuffed shirts on the stage. They like action and human characters.

“Too many would-be comedians today want to take the easy way. They don’t want funny clothes or dirty faces. They want to throw away the tramp’s outfit and walk on stage in evening dress and talk. Words, words - no action, no characters.”

Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman- In Remembrance

All of us at Keep Cardiff Live are extremely saddened to hear of Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman’s passing earlier this week. 

In 1971, the Cardiff-born guitarist replaced Gary Moore in Irish blues band Skid Row; his first notable musical breakthrough. The Welsh guitarist had various stints with the iconic UFO (firstly in 1974 and then in 1977), who went on to become one of the more pivotal bands in the transitional period between hard rock and the new wave of British heavy metal. Between each stint, ‘Tonka’ formed the Cardiff-based dynamic heavy rock group Lone Star, who went on to release two studio albums: Their self-titled LP and ‘Firing On All Six’. 

Despite the band’s impressive collection of sounds, the all-Welsh group went under the radar at the time, due to the ever-growing popularity of punk rock during the late 70s. However, Chapman was a hugely talented guitarist, consequently re-joining UFO in 1977. 

Lone Star played Cardiff on several memorable occasions, including at Top Rank and Capitol Theatre in 1977, as well as the University in 1976. What’s more, during his spells with UFO, the Welshman played six concerts in the Welsh capital, with notable venues including Sophia Gardens Pavilion (1978) and St David’s Hall (1983). 

Post UFO, Tonka’s passion for music lived on, with several guest appearances and stints with bands outside of the UK. Known for his indestructible traits, ‘Tonka’ Chapman’s influence across the rock genre underpins his reputation as one of Cardiff’s greats. 

Rest in Peace, Paul. 

Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman- 1954-2020 

On this Day 10 June 1977 - Ian Hunter

On this Day 10 June 1977, former Mott the Hoople frontman Ian Hunter played the Top Rank Suite, Cardiff, on his Overnight Angels tour.

His band were supported by punk rockers The Vibrators.

Overnight Angels (1977), was produced by Roy Thomas Baker and featured a heavier guitar sound courtesy of former Bowie sideman Earl Slick. Hunter's record label in America, CBS refused to release the album in the US due to issues concerning Hunter's management: "Overnight Angels was not released in the US because I fired my manager, Fred Heller, during the English promotional tour – just before it was to be released in America. Columbia said they didn't want to release it until I had new management and that dragged on until it became too late.

Set list for the tour

Golden Opportunity

One of the Boys
(Mott the Hoople song)

Overnight Angels

All the Way From Memphis
(Mott the Hoople song)

Once Bitten Twice Shy



Letter to Britannia From the Union Jack

England Rocks

Roll Away the Stone
(Mott the Hoople song)

All the Young Dudes
(David Bowie cover)