Week 10

Week 10 – Friday 11^th March  – Cardiff Arts Institute, Cardiff – Daedelus - £4

“Does it still count if you leave four hours before the end, barely drink, spend most of the night sitting down, and don’t actually see the guy who is named on the bill?”

“Yes it does,” was of course the desired response to the question I asked Sandro when we left Cardiff Arts Institute as it neared midnight on the final night of Week 10. This was before Daedelus, the night’s main draw, had even taken to the decks.

We’d taken the laid back approach to planning for a second week running, leaving it until the last moment to plump for the unknown delights of Daedelus. He sounded splendid based on our thorough research.

We only listened to one track, but we did play it twice.

At just £4 it was the economic option, always a consideration in Gigaweek, as my meticulous reporting of the cost of various beers and taxi rides proves. The main competition for our attention this week was Sean Ryder, with support from The Twang, at the Millennium music Hall on the same night, which would have set us back a further £11.

Sandro has always maintained that he won’t watch any musician perform if they’re going to be drunker than he is. Surprisingly he has never had any such issues in the past, but with the Happy Mondays man he wasn’t so sure. For some reason he said he had no desire to see The Twang whether they were drunk or not (“Neither way, thank you very much. . .”).

The clincher that pushed us to Daedelus was the fact that a certain Flapjack had a ticket to see Sean Ryder. 

We did briefly bump into Flapjack beforehand at pre-gig pint venue The Pen & Wig, where we were also met by two merry men who’d be making their first appearance in Gigaweek colours of the season, Little John and Little Bird, or Robin as he’s known by tight wearing men such as myself and Sandro.

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Cardiff Arts Institute was another new venue for the year, and although Sandro and I had bought 2 tickets online the previous day, all 4 of us walked through the back door unchallenged at around half past 8.

After the guitar wizardry of Week 9 courtesy of Larry Miller, we were now at the other end of the musical spectrum entirely. Daedelus, whose real name is Alfred Darlington, is a multi-talented music producer who hadn’t brought such primitive instruments to put on his show, instead using advanced technology such as a laptop and the mystical Monome and utilising miraculous discoveries, such as electricity. Hailing from Los Angeles, he’s an American who has an astonishingly unusual fascination for the fine country of Wales. 

Apparently having some relatives here, and visiting as a kid, he even spent his honeymoon here and called one of his albums Of Snowdonia. Most impressively, Alf used to tell kids in school in America that he was born in Wales. He wasn’t. I was. I used to tell kids in my school that I was born on the moon. Wales didn’t seem as exotic to me.

The omens were good. Welsh musical genius Gruff Rhys’ twitter account had plugged the gig, and equally Welsh (which is no mean feat) music guru Huw Stephens was present, although he does seem to be ubiquitous. If that wasn’t enough, the poster for Daedelus’ appearance at CAI quoted the acclaimed Flying Lotus, as saying “He’s the best. He is so talented!” What could go wrong?

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Once again I’d been trying to remain teetotal for the night, which hadn’t been a problem when Frankie & The Heartstrings were on stage a couple of weeks ago, but considering I was looking around a table tonight at Sandro, Little John and Little Bird, I was understandably desperate for a can of Red Stripe (four for a tenner by the way).

I recognised Daedelus by his distinctive mutton chops as seen on the poster, and he was still sat chatting with Huw at a table on the dance/stage floor, as it neared 10 o’clock.

Time ticked on and on, until they and others sat in the area began to relocate, which eased my anxiety slightly. Little Bird had run out of cigarettes and therefore decided to give up for the night, so naturally ten minutes later he disappeared in the hope of nicking one off someone outside. He was successful, declaring that the girls who’d generously shared their death sticks were “Quite fit, actually.”

Support came in the form of local DJs/Producers/Deck botherers Darkhouse Family and Mr Healan. Would you call it electronica? Or dubstep? Does it matter? No. Whatever they played it was nice. It was enjoyable. But it was background music. Was that because we were sat down, instead of drinking and dancing? Possibly. Or was it because we were focusing on just how many packets of crisps Little Bird could polish off? Probably.

Daedelus disappeared upstairs soon after 11, and I started to accept that maybe we weren’t going to be getting the most out of our £4 tonight. Little John decided it was time to leave, and I reluctantly agreed considering that Sandro had predicted Daedelus wouldn’t be returning until around 1am.

As we left we bumped into a couple of girls who greeted Ash as “The Fastest Smoker in The World.”

“Aah! A little bird told me you were quite fit, actually. I’m disappointed to see it was a wholly inaccurate description,” I nearly said, before deciding I’m not as cruel to people’s faces as I am as an anonymous writer. Just to confirm, they were not “Quite fit, actually.” They weren't P. Mushy ugly, they were more Cousin Bish ugly.

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And that’s when I started to ask life’s important questions.

How ugly was P. Mushy?

Was I ugly?

How ugly?

What do you mean pug ugly?

Does being ugly make me a bad person?

Does being a bad person make me a bad person?

So many questions, but none were more prominent in my mind than the question.

No, not about life, the universe and everything. The question was: Did this count as a gig?

Based on the Gigaweek rules it did. We’d bought tickets. It was live. It was music. Original music even. I think.

But was it in the spirit of Gigaweek? After all, what is the point if Gigaweek? Isn’t that the other question we’ve all been wondering?

It didn’t feel like one. It felt like a night out, backed by some higher-than-average-profile DJ’s. Maybe big fans of dubstep and electronic music would be happy to confirm that it was a proper gig. Although, they might take issue with the fact that we left at 12 rather than 4am.

I didn’t know how to feel. Dejected or satisfied. By my own rulebook we’d succeeded in ticking off the Week 10 box, but not in a fulfilling way. In fact I hadn’t felt as bad as this since Goose died in Top Gun (if that’s a spoiler for you, I apologise, but really, what have you been doing with your life?).

I resolved to ensure that we had fulfilling gigs for the rest of Gigaweek, fully aware that I could do no such thing.

After being disappointed by the lack of wisdom from taxi drivers in recent weeks, I was pleasantly surprised to find a taxi driver with a few interesting things to say tonight. The big news of the day was of the devastation wreaked by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan, so we discussed the fallout, including an ever increasing death toll.

“And we moan in this country about a little bit of snow, or even rain,” he said sagely. It was enough to put my grief over Goose and Gigaweek into perspective. 


“It is a bit chilly tonight though drive,” said Sandro.

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March

26-4 – Larry Miller - ✓
5-11 - Daedelus - ✓
12-18 -?
19-25 - Elbow
26-1 -?