Week 36 – Tuesday 6th September – Willy Mason – The Gate,
Cardiff – £12.50
“That’s not the first time I’ve seen Gaffa tape on Willy you know?”
Following the excesses of Reading Festival, Sandro and I
were in the mood for a much more relaxed and much less draining gig. Willy Mason obliged, giving us an
opportunity to sit down and make crude and childish puns.
Sandro has been a fan of Willy for several years, ever since
his first sniff of ‘Oxygen’ in fact. Inevitably,
it wasn’t long before he’d turned me on to Willy too, and I haven’t looked back
since, except for when Willy’s behind me of course.
Even more disturbingly than my thought processes, the gig fell on the same day as an almighty
football fixture. The biggest fixture of all for Welsh football fans, as our formidable
national team, who are currently ranked an impressive 117th in the
world travelled to the home of football to face England, ranked 4th.
Of course, this clash was unknown to Sandro when he bought four tickets for the gig. The intended recipients of two of those tickets had said
“balls to that!” and decided that they wouldn’t let Willy get in the way of
such an occasion and pulled out.
Fortunately, somebody else had shown a
fondness for Mr Mason.
“You’re going to see him
are you?!” Proud parent Parge said when I told him.
“Yes. But it’s Willy Mason,
not Willy Nelson,” I clarified.
Old people do get easily confused.
“I know that, I heard him on the radio the other day. He was
terrific,” Parge said surprising me.
“You know how to use a radio?” I replied.
He did, and that was that, as Parge volunteered himself and
Marge for the spare tickets.
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Willy was playing at
a venue neither of us had been to before, Roath’s The Gate, so beforehand we headed to nearby pub The George, where we squeezed a pint or
two into our schedule along with some of the England v Wales game, which Marge particularly enjoyed.
While Wales’ hopes of
qualifying for Euro 2012 were already over, we’d put in a decent performance to
achieve the unthinkable and win a game a few days earlier. That promise
continued, with England only leading by a goal to nil after an hour, so the
thought of leaving was heart-wrenching. Not for the first time though, Sandro
and I were prepared to make a huge sacrifice for Willy, and we unglued our eyes
from the screen and walked to the venue.
The Gate, it turns out, is one of those picturesque converted
churches that I’m so fond of. A listed building that’s over a century old, so obviously there was a bar inside. However, as I’d feared, there was no TV, so we had to rely on updates via text for any news from Wembley. Once inside, it wasn’t especially clear which
door would lead us to the main hall so we ended up in the toilet, which was
fortunate because urinating on stage would have been awkward.
We tried the lift and found
ourselves stranded outside a back door to the main hall. The door was ajar and
we could hear second support act The
Staves playing inside, and we could also see that the crowd were seated and
silent. Ominously, a sign requested respect for the performers which suggested
immature Willy jokes would be at a premium, which was a bummer.
Unable to enter via
the back passage, we retreated the way we’d come to find a winding staircase a small queue of a people were already waiting to enter. After the
band had finished we entered and finally glimpsed the inside of the venue in all its glory. It
must have been quite near capacity already, as there were precious few empty spaces
among the pews that lined the hall.
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There was just about enough space for the four of us to plonk ourselves on pews to the
left of the stage. In our position we had the unusual disadvantage of having our view obscured
by a fridge. The fridge was part of a temporary bar which was serving drinks between acts, although the queue was long enough to keep us sober. Willy was due on at half past nine, but appeared just beforehand
to let the crowd know that there was a technical issue, as his treasured thumb pick had become two thumb picks.
He asked the audience if anyone happened to have a spare but I’d forgotten mine
and so it appeared, had everybody else.
There was a slight delay while he sought a plan B and we
spent the gap admiring our surroundings. The pews were packed inside the
cavernous hall, whose high ceiling looked like the inverted hull of a huge ship,
or an ark if you will, which prompted Sandro and I to start picking out people
in the crowd who looked like animals, for reasons which seemed more rational
and humorous at the time. Parge, the Walrus, and Marge, the cat were
unimpressed.
Luckily our zoology studies were interrupted by the frantic
buzzing of phones before we got round to each other. There must have been significant
news as text messages were flying in. I’d received a record breaking three,
surprisingly not from three attractive ladies, but in fact three spectacularly
unattractive lads.
A text from J-Mo read: Oh My God!
A text from Cousin Bish simply read: What a
goofy twat!
A text from P. Mushy elaborated: Unbelievable open goal miss
by Earnie!
Devastating. Of all the people to spurn a glorious chance to get a result
at Wembley. Tap-in specialist Robert Earnshaw had blown it. To console him, as I
know he’s a regular reader, it was a nothing game and Wales played well enough
to offer promise for the future, plus everybody loves Earnie (except Cousin
Bish) so it wasn’t too disappointing. Honestly. I cry after every game.
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About fifteen minutes
later than planned, Willy returned to bring smiles back to our faces. He was
grateful to gaffer tape, having eventually managed to repair his own thumb pick.
Willy would prove to be a genial and likeable stage presence throughout, possessing
a helluva voice and showcasing some lovely songs. He may only be in his
mid-twenties but he’s got one of those deep smokey, story-telling American
voices, not dissimilar, if you were wondering, to my own.
He hasn’t released an
album in four years, but the two he’s made so far contain songs that
demonstrate his talent and fill a fine set. Admittedly, Willy may not be to
everyone’s tastes, ‘We Can
Be Strong’ and ‘Hard Hand to Hold’ are
fine examples of his craft as a songwriter and just the kind of songs that a
seated, respectful audience admires. Naturally, Marge was snoring by this point.
Surprisingly early in his set he played ‘Save Myself’, a
personal favourite of mine and the lead single from his second album, which is
much more immediate than what came before, with a riff to nod along to and smart
sing-along lyrics, that I wasn't smart enough to sing along to. There was a literal and metaphorical hiccup (admittedly, it may have
been a burp) during ‘Riptide’ and Willy
had to stop twice, which the crowd forgave with good humour, before demanding
refunds behind the scenes.
Towards the end of the gig, he sang the
incomparable ‘Oxygen’, which is so
good I doubt he’ll ever surpass it, but it wasn’t the
finale as I’d guessed it would be. After leaving the stage to an ovation, he
awkwardly turned at the door and returned to his guitar once more for an encore. He asked the audience for suggestions, but
ignored cries for the likes of ‘Our Town’ and instead played a couple of songs from his very first EP.
We left The Gate contented, although Sandro shared
his mild disappointment at hearing the three minute single version of ‘Oxygen’ rather than the five minute
album version, which was peculiar, as three minutes of Willy is usually enough for
Sandro.
Sorry Marge.
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September
3-9 - Willy Mason - ✓
10-16 -Toots & The Maytals
17-23 -?
24-30 -?
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