On This Day 05/09/2003 The Black Keys

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On this day, 5 September 2003, American rock band The Black Keys played Cardiff’s Barfly on their Thickfreakness tour.

Formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001 the group consists of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). The duo began as an independent act, recording music in basements and self-producing their records, before they eventually emerged as one of the most popular garage rock artists during a second wave of the genre's revival in the 2000s. The band's raw blues rock sound draws heavily from Auerbach's blues influences, including Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, Howlin' Wolf, and Robert Johnson.

Thickfreakness, the band’s second album was released on April 8, 2003, and received positive reviews from critics. The record spawned three singles: "Set You Free", "Hard Row", and a cover of Richard Berry's "Have Love, Will Travel". The other cover from the album was Junior Kimbrough's "Everywhere I Go".

Time later named Thickfreakness the third-best album of 2003. That year, the duo received a lucrative offer of £200,000 to license one of their songs for use in an English mayonnaise advertisement. At the suggestion of their manager, they rejected the offer for fear of being perceived as "sell-outs" and alienating their fan base.

The band toured extensively throughout 2003, playing its first dates outside of the United States and opening concerts for Sleater-Kinney, Beck, and Dashboard Confessional. However, exhaustion had set in by the end of the year, forcing the band to cancel European tour dates.

In August, the group made its national television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. As fellow garage band the White Stripes grew in popularity, the Black Keys drew comparisons to them—sometimes as a derivative act—since both groups had two-piece lineups, Midwest origins, bluesy sounds, and names with colors.

In September, the Black Keys released a split-EP with the Six Parts Seven titled The Six Parts Seven/The Black Keys EP, featuring one song by the Six Parts Seven and three songs by the Black Keys.

On This Day 04/09/2011 Public Enemy

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On this day, 4 September 2011, American hip hop legends Public Enemy played Cardiff University.

Formed by Chuck D and Flavor Flav on Long Island, New York, in 1985. The group came to attention for their political messages including subjects such as American racism and the American media.

Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim, and their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), was the first hip hop album to top The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll.

Their next three albums, Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black (1991) and Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994), were also well received. The group has since released twelve more studio albums, including the soundtrack to the 1998 movie He Got Game and a collaborative album with Paris, Rebirth of a Nation (2006).

Public Enemy @ Cardiff University Solus

Nick Fisk

Back in the late 1980s/early 90s, there were three bands whose albums, without fail, always picked up a 10/10 in the NME – a mark rarely given. The bands in question were: The Pixies, REM and Public Enemy. Tonight, Public Enemy were in town to do a re-run of ‘Fear of a Black Planet’. I’ve seen a couple of these album performances now; whilst some bands just play the album through from track 1 to the end -or maybe jiggle the tracklisting a bit- Public Enemy in true revolutionary style, just played whatever the hell they wanted, cutting in classics from other albums at leisure.

The build up to this gig was filled with excitement from the time it was first announced a few months ago – incredibly, it was to be the group’s first ever show in Cardiff – right up until the moment the band hit the stage. Both warm up DJ and the support act got the crowd going, then a couple of members of the Public Enemy crew came onstage to further get the crowd into the party spirit. The album’s opening jam played before Chuck D, Flavor Flav and the whole band finally appeared to the sound of ‘Brothers Gonna Work It Out’: and the place literally ‘blew up’.

Any questions about whether Public Enemy are still relevant and whether this show would be much more than an entertaining hark back to the past were very quickly forgotten. The band’s stage presence has an impact that is the most captivating I have ever seen. Along with DJ Lord, the drummer, bassist and guitarist, the two main men are flanked on either side by members of the S1W team, who are all dressed in outfits that could be those of prisoners or members of the military. On the one hand, they’re mocking authority, but at the same time, there’s a look of such defiance that you almost think the revolution has just happened and these are the people who have taken over.

One crew member led the crowd in raising fists, and it did not seem to matter that this was by far a majority white crowd. The fact that the NME was one of the band’s biggest champions might well be one of the reasons for this, amongst a crowd of mostly hardened gig goers. The slogan on the back of this particular crew member’s t-shirt (7K, I think Chuck D introduced him as) read “Freedom is a road seldom travelled by the multitude,” and the solidarity expressed within the crowd was reassuring – this being a group of fans who were equally supportive, and free of prejudice.

Politics may well be one facet to the Public Enemy package, but fun is another factor in this, and any hip hop show. Flavor Flav is the fun provider, and gets the place jumping like the floor is on springs. Early on, he leads the crowd in a long cheer of “Woooah” (as if he’s about to do the Ayatollah, heh!). He also invites one audience member to the stage to join in with the words, and later swaps a t-shirt with a girl who’d got him a nice looking pocket watch as a present.

Surprisingly, Flavor also turns out to be a pretty adept musician, twanging away in one section on first the bass, before having a go on the drums. Meanwhile, the guitarist shows off by playing his instrument behind his head. We are also treated to the full force of DJ Lord’s scratching skills, after Flavor gives him an intro like a boxer entering the ring. For a good 5 minutes, he is literally on the “1s and 2s” as the 2 tracks on his decks seem to have just the words “one” and “two” on loops while he cuts and scratches between the two: this sequence is filmed by another crew member, and I would strongly advise checking it out on Youtube –you’ll be in for a treat. This showmanship is an indication that Public Enemy really are the number one hip hop band for a reason –they are all incredibly gifted musicians.

The quality of the songs seals the band’s reputation as being the greatest hip hop act. Along with the best of ‘Fear of a Black Planet’, they play classics like ‘Bring The Noise’ and ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’, as well as more recent song ‘Harder Than You Think’, which was a highlight for me. If there was just one negative aspect on the night, it was the fuss made over a half empty plastic bottle being thrown onto the stage. OK, we had been asked prior to the start not to throw things on stage, but sending security into the crowd to try to deal with the perpetrator was a little excessive I thought, and for a moment I sensed it was a case of using the same heavy handed control which the band purport to oppose. But this was over quickly, and fairly soon after the show drew to a close. Flavor led the crowd into raising our hands once more; this time in a victory salute, then got us all to repeat the word “Peace,” and that was it: a strangely quiet ending.  The band had come onstage with a bang, and left in peace.

There was no encore, but during the unofficial after party at Buffalo, some of the band made an appearance -which is rare. For me, this along with meeting the guy with the cool Public Enemy tattoo, turned a top notch evening into an eleven out of ten performance.

On This Day 03/09/2011 Dolly Parton

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On this day, 3 September 2011, American Country Legend Dolly Parton played the first of two nights at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena on her Better Day World Tour.

It was the tenth concert tour by Dolly Parton. Visiting North America, Europe and Australia, the tour supported her 41st studio album, Better Day. With nearly 275,000 tickets sold, and an overall gross of $34 million, it is Parton's most successful tour.

Cardiff Review - Guardian

As women in pink Stetsons and high heels take their seats, Dolly Parton totters on stage in a tight white dress that exaggerates every curve. There is polite pandemonium. Her face and frame may be triumphs of Botox and collagen, but her voice is as pure as mountain air as she launches into a version of Walking on Sunshine. She does a little hoedown, and her enthusiasm is infectious. She would make an excellent primary school teacher. "We need to feel good," she declares, and you think, "Yes, Miss Parton, we do."

The anecdotes are often longer than the songs. And they are all meticulously rehearsed to sound off-the-cuff, such as the one about the red-haired girl who tried to steal her husband that prefaces Jolene.

There is a bluegrass medley, complete with yee-haws and yodelay-heehoos, that includes Dueling Banjos and numerous references to her being a country girl. Parton reminisces about growing up as one of 12 children in poverty in the Tennessee mountains, and it sounds like an episode of The Waltons, so full is it of folksy charm and homespun homilies. She sits on a quilt to tell a story about a coat made for her from scraps by her "Mama" as images appear on the screen of a sepia shack. As her voice cracks, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. When she picks up a shiny saxophone and asks, "How did I get one of these from such humble beginnings?" you think, "Enough of the protestations of poverty!"

Behind the sentiment and shtick, there are dollops of ersatz country – but this is more of a generic US pop-rock sound than it is the real thing. Nevertheless, Parton is a respected songwriter, and pens most of her own material. When she plays tracks from her new album, Better Day, on an acoustic guitar it reminds you that she was a serious musician and ambassador for Americana before she became a figure of cartoon-country fun.

After a 20-minute interval, Parton reappears in a red sequinned jump-suit ("It costs a lot of money to look this cheap," she jokes), and after dispensing with 2001's Little Sparrow, which is as arrestingly solemn and sparse as a traditional folk tune, she cranks out the hits that people have paid to hear. Here You Come Again gets everyone on their feet, and Islands in the Stream keeps them there.

As the singer makes her final assault with I Will Always Love You, infused with country-gospel fervour, and 9 to 5, sung against a glitzy apocalypse of a Las Vegas backdrop, it occurs to you just how strange this self-styled Backwoods Barbie – equal parts Lady Gaga and Loretta Lynn – really is.

Setlist

"Walking on Sunshine" (contains excerpts from "Shine Like the Sun")

"Better Get to Livin'"

"Jolene"

"Rocky Top"

"Mule Skinner Blues"

"Help!"

"Shine"

"Stairway to Heaven"

"My Tennessee Mountain Home"

"Precious Memories"

"Coat of Many Colors"

"Smoky Mountain Memories"

"Son of a Preacher Man"

"Better Day"

"Together You and I"

"Holding Everything"

"Joyful Noise"

"He Will Take You Higher" (contains excerpts from "I Want to Take You Higher")

"He's Everything"

"White Limozeen"

"The Best of Both Worlds"

"The Sacrifice"

"In the Meantime"

"Little Sparrow"

"River Deep – Mountain High"

"Here You Come Again

"Islands in the Stream"

"9 to 5"

Encore

"I Will Always Love You"

"Light of a Clear Blue Morning"

On This Day 01/09/1978 The Pop Group

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On this day, 1 September 1978, rock band The Pop Group played Cardiff Top Rank supporting American singer Patti Smith.

The Pop Group was formed in 1977 in Bristol when teenager Mark Stewart set out to start a funk group with schoolmates John Waddington and Simon Underwood.

Inspired by the energy of punk rock but feeling the style to be too conservative, the group drew influence from the avant-garde, black music styles such as free jazz and dub, and radical political traditions.

Guitarist Gareth Sager and drummer Bruce Smith were eventually added to the group. Soon after forming, they began to gain notoriety for their live performances and were signed to Radar Records. They appeared on the cover of the NME.

The band donated the proceeds from their first high-profile tour to Amnesty International. They issued their debut single "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" in March 1979 and their debut album Y in April of that year, both to acclaim. Regardless, their moderate success was sufficient to convince Rough Trade to sign the band. During this period, Dan Catsis replaced Underwood on bass.

The band's career with Rough Trade began with the release of the single "We Are All Prostitutes." This was followed by the release of their second album For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? (1980). Shortly afterwards the Pop Group released a split single, "Where There's a Will...", with the Slits, a band with whom they shared a drummer (Bruce Smith) and manager Dick O'Dell.

The band's last live performance was in 1980 to a crowd of 500,000 people at Trafalgar Square as part of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protest. They split in 1981 after legal wranglings and internal disagreements.

Members of the group collaborated and joined bands such as Pigbag, Maximum Joy, Head, the Slits and Rip Rig + Panic, the latter notable for the involvement of Neneh Cherry. Stewart subsequently embarked on a solo career and went on to collaborate with Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, prior to a series of albums on Mute Records.

On This Day 31/08/2004 Allister

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On this day, 31 August 2004, American punk/pop band Allister played Cardiff’s Barfly. They were about to release their third studio album Before The Blackout.

The four-piece formed in 1994 as Phineas Gage when the original band members were still in high school. In 1998, Allister became one of the first bands to sign to Drive-Thru Records.

They went on hiatus in 2007, then reunited in 2010, and have been touring and recording again since. They have released six studio albums: Dead Ends and Girlfriends (1999), Last Stop Suburbia (2002), Before the Blackout (2005), Countdown to Nowhere (2010), Life Behind Machines (2012), and 20 Years and Counting (2019). The band also made a cameo appearance in the 2004 film Sleepover.

On This Day 30/08/1965 The Who

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On this day, 30 August 1965, legendary British rock band The Who, played Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens.

The Cardiff show is the first for The Who placed by their new booking agent, Australian Robert Stigwood. Two Stigwood acts, The Merseybeats and The Graham Bond Organization, open for The Who.

In early 1965, The Who made their first appearance on the television music show, Top of the Pops, at the BBC's Dickenson Road Studios in Manchester, with "I Can't Explain".

The follow-up single, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere", by Townshend and Daltrey, features guitar noises such as pick sliding, toggle switching and feedback, which was so unconventional that it was initially rejected by the US arm of Decca. The single reached the top 10 in the UK and was used as the theme song to Ready Steady Go!

The transition to a hit-making band with original material, encouraged by manager Kit Lambert, did not sit well with Daltrey, and a recording session of R&B covers went unreleased.

The next single, "My Generation", followed in October. Townshend had written it as a slow blues, but after several abortive attempts, it was turned into a more powerful song with a bass solo from Entwistle. The song used gimmicks such as a vocal stutter to simulate the speech of a mod on amphetamines, and two key changes.

The debut album My Generation was released in late 1965. Among original material by Townshend, including the title track and "The Kids Are Alright", the album has several James Brown covers from the session earlier that year that Daltrey favoured.

On This Day 28/08/2016 The Tide

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On this day, 28 August 2016, American rock band The Tide played The Globe, Cardiff on their Click My Fingers Tour.

The band was formed when the Vamps announced a secret project in late December 2014 and held auditions for a US guitarist and drummer aged 18–20 to form a band. Drew and Nate were in a previous pop-punk band called "All the Above" until they were given the offer to move on.

The Tide started on February 25, 2015, consisting of 4 members: Austin Corini (born 26 December 1995) - lead vocals, Drew Dirksen (born 30 September 1996) - lead guitar and backing vocals, Levi Jones (born 21 November 1997) - bass guitar and vocals and Nate Parker (born 26 September 1996) - drum and backing vocals. Like the Vamps, the band started uploading covers on YouTube and gained a number of fans since then.

On February 18, 2015, the Vamps announced that they would be taking them on tour. The Tide have so far played shows across Europe in various countries such as Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Ireland for The Vamps UK Arena Tour. The first show of the tour kicked off in Glasgow, Scotland and the last show was in Madrid, Spain on 24 March 2016. The Tide toured the United Kingdom August - September 2016, with support acts of New Hope Club (also signed to the Vamps' record label) and Josh Taylor.

The Tide released their debut single "Young Love" on March 25, 2016. A second single, "Click My Fingers" was released on August 12, 2016. Their first EP, Click My Fingers was released on November 15, 2016. Their third single "Put the Cuffs on Me" was released on March 31, 2017, supporting their headlining tour named 'Put the Cuffs on Me Tour'. Their fourth single "Naked" was released September 8, 2017, alongside digital pre-order for their debut album Young Love. Their album was released on October 15, 2017.

On This Day 27/08/2004 Dido

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On this day, 27 August 2004, Singer songwriter Dido played Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena, with support provided by Aqualung.

Dido had released her second album Life for Rent in 2003. Preceded by the hit single "White Flag", the album sold over 152,000 copies in the first day alone in the UK, and went on to sell over 400,000 in the first week.

Three further singles—"Life for Rent", "Don't Leave Home" and "Sand in My Shoes"—were lifted from the album, with Dido embarking on a worldwide tour in support of the album (a DVD of footage from the tour was released in 2005 entitled Live at Brixton Academy).

Following her sold-out world tour of 2004, Dido was asked to perform at three of the Live 8 concerts on 2 July 2005—performing in London, then at the Eden Project in Cornwall, before flying over to Paris, performing both solo ("White Flag") and duetting with Youssou N'Dour ("Thank You" and "Seven Seconds").

Dido's first two albums are among the best-selling albums in UK chart history, and both are in the top 10 best-selling albums of the 2000s in the UK.

In May 2019, Dido received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.