Week 28

Week 28 – Thursday 14th July – The Big Gig – The Globe, Cardiff - £5.00

“I’m sorry, but covering one of the most well-known songs in the country at the moment is cheating. . .”

On the day before the release of the final instalment in the little known Harry Potter series, Sandro successfully convinced Salazar to sacrifice her planned night in reading about Witches and Golden Snitches (whilst listening to The Wombats of course), to join us for what was essentially a ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest at The Globe.  

It was the inaugural ‘Big Gig’ competition, with Cardiff Council’s events team, combining with Nation radio to organise an extravaganza over the course of three days. On offer for the winners, was the chance to perform at the Cardiff Big Weekend, a free outdoor music festival in August that I consider to be the most important festival of the year, and definitely won’t be attending. 

The Big Weekend has hosted bands like Los Campesinos, Feeder, Athlete, The Zutons and Ash in recent years, so it was a tantalising prospect for tonight’s contenders, especially for those of them who were fans of Funeral For a Friend, Gabrielle and The Feeling who were headlining the three-day event this year, and let’s be honest, who isn’t?

After a quick pre-gig pint and meal at The Claude where there was a disappointing lack of violence, we headed to The Globe and managed to find a few stools to plant ourselves on. The voice of Nation Radio, Chris Blumer, was the compere for the evening and took to the stage equipped with a microphone and his radio friendly voice, which close friends and family must find irritating by now. 

We were only committed enough to make it for the final of this event, and the two days previously had literally sorted the men from the boys, with a contest for the under-18s on Tuesday, and over 18s on Wednesday night. Mr Blumer revealed that as well as the winners and runners-up from each night, there was also a ‘Wild Card’ selection from each night, which meant that a total of six bands would be performing, which was all terribly exciting.

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Blumer also declared that the judging panel included a Nation Radio presenter, an ex-guitarist for the band Funeral for a Friend, a hairy giant, a lady from Cardiff Council and Louis Walsh, though I may have misheard him for at least one of those. 

The first band of the night brought back fine memories for me and Sandro, from half a year ago, for it was Fjords, who we’d seen in this very venue playing to a far smaller audience. On this occasion, although The Globe was nowhere near capacity there were plenty present, presumably many friends and family members of those involved in the contest.

All seven members of Fjords crammed onto the stage once more, showing that they hadn’t taken (or been aware of) Sandro’s advice to trim the herd. Sandro, who was already angry that The Weird Sisters weren’t playing, was also incensed that Fjords’ trumpeter stood on the opposite side of the stage this time, and he was visibly angry that the short bassist was still short.

‘Russian Doll’ was the opening song of the night, and reminded us that it was indeed a good tune, and we hadn’t just had beer-tinted ear drums the first time we’d heard it. Sal, who hadn’t seen them before, agreed that they had a couple of really good tunes, but argued that there were a few naff ones too. Surprisingly, she thought the naff ones were the ones where the female singer took lead vocals. . .

We weren’t sure how the running order had been worked out at the time, Sandro guessed that some sort of talking hat had worked it out, but being the opening act in such a contest was bound to leave Fjords with little chance of success, so we correctly assumed that they were the ‘Wild Card’ from the over-18s event. The front-man probably mentioned being the “warm-up act” once too often, and with a hint too much bitterness in his voice, but that didn’t stop him from leaping from the stage and dancing with members of the crowd, who on the whole received them well.

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The second band up were the ‘Wild Card’ from the under-18s night, a double-act called The Dead Beats, who were a couple of boys from Barry who had a bluesy edge to them. The singer’s growly voice belied his years and Sandro thought it may just sway the judges and help them to do a Goran, the most famous tennis playing magician (yep, even he’s a witch), and give them the coveted Big Gig trophy, but of course, at that point we didn’t realise they’d only managed the bronze in their heat.

Following The Dead Beats were the runners-up from the over-18s night, valley rockers Eric Unseen. It would be cruel to slag off a new band working hard to get a break, but that’s never stopped Sandro, and Eric Unseen were prime candidates. The front-man had an air of arrogance about him that fell on just the wrong side of the amusing/irritating fence, and their music was in the same vein of the many bands that have come out of South Wales in recent years, which is by no means a compliment.

In fairness, it wasn’t as though they were evil or racist or anything, but you never know. They seemed to enjoy the occasion, and the singer actually seemed humble enough. He certainly said all the right things: “It’s a pleasure to be here; thanks to the judges and everyone who organised the gig; don’t do drugs; blah, blah, blah,” so perhaps Sandro was a bit out of order when he threw faeces at the stage.

The equally poorly-named Ellie Makes Music was on next. Surprisingly, Ellie Makes Music is the moniker for a young bespectacled ginger girl, who may or may not be called Ellie, and almost certainly makes music. Sal suggested that if she’d been born ten years earlier, she would have been the perfect person to portray Moaning Myrtle on screen, which I believe was intended as a flattering compliment.

Ellie was runner-up in the under-18s category, she was clearly a talented girl and different to Eric Unseen in every sense. Equipped with an acoustic guitar she played a series of gentle songs before disappearing to polite and warm applause. Would she woo the judges? Sandro thought so, but then he’d tipped everyone so far, whereas sexist Sal scowled disapprovingly.

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Things started to heat up when we moved on to the winners of the two heats. First up was Ffred Jones, from the over-18s category. Ffred is a big, bearded and bespectacled singer-songwriter, who resembled Harry Potter himself, but in place of a wand was an acoustic guitar, and his most impressive spell was the way he spelled Fred. Ffred was backed by a band that included his brother (Ggeorge), and they were clearly competent musicians, but they didn’t really show off any real magic.

An MC joined them on stage for one song to add a bit of variety to proceedings, and they finished on a cover of Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’, which was the straw that broke Sandro’s back. It would be hard to do a bad version of Elbow’s famous curtain closer and Ffred’s was pleasant enough and fairly well-received by the crowd, but not quite as impressive as the real thing at the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury less than a month earlier.

Sandro saw the use of such a song as cheating and was apoplectic with rage. “There’s clearly no rule against it, what’s the problem?” I asked him.

“It’s an unwritten rule, which should be observed for the sake of musicianmanship. Without it we are lost,” he replied despairingly, caressing his copy of the Holy Book of Battle of the Bands Etiquette and Musicianmanship. 

“Is that a real word? Is that a real book? Why are you wearing a pointy hat?” were all irrelevant questions that I had no desire to ask. Meanwhile Salazar had only one thing to say: “This is no Bridget Jones.”

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The under 18s category winners were a band called Inconsiderate Parking, who were up well past their bed time, but were actually pretty good. “We’re your headline act for the evening,” their ukulele wielding front-man said cheekily. He also apologised for tuning his instrument in the toilet earlier, which caused alarm bells in my euphemism littered mind.

It had been a fiercely contested competition, with all six acts evidently desperate to win and there was clearly bad blood between Ffred Jones and Ellie Makes Music, with Ellie using language foul enough to make Sandro blush. Eric Unseen were seemingly universally unpopular, shunned by everyone and their mums, whilst The Dead Beats and Fjords took turns smashing each other’s instruments. Undoubtedly also overcome with rage at the Elbow cover, Fjords’ trumpeter finally got his moment to shine, and approaching Ffred, he shoved his instrument where the sun doesn’t.

I jest of course; in fact that last paragraph contains the first fabrications in Gigaweek history. In reality, all the acts seemed to have mixed well and were supportive of each other throughout the night, with a few of them joining in to mosh for the final song of the night from Inconsiderate Parking.

Chris Blumer returned to the stage and indicated that the winner would be announced shortly. Eager to know the result, and with Red Stripe at four for a tenner, we decided to stick around to find out. When Blumer reappeared for the final time, he revealed that the judges had chosen Ffred Jones as the winner of the inaugural Big Gig,  and the prize of performing at the Big Weekend. Ffred was understandably delighted, and he and his band posed for photos and were interviewed by a woman from Nation Radio. 

Sandro, of course, was livid, and he aimed a yellowy spell with his wand (Willow, Four inches, Peacock feather) at the stage, before storming out and tossing away his copy of the Holy Book of Battle of the Bands Etiquette and Musicianmanship as he went.

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July

2-8 - Tribes - ✓
9-15 - The Big Gig - ✓
16-22 - ?
23-29 - ?