Part Two - Gruff
Rhys
“He thinks he’s Lady Gaga. . .”
Four days after our sweaty trip to Bristol, it was wet and
windy again, which meant we were back in Cardiff. I’d stopped believing I was a
Pirate, but Cousin Bish was still convinced he was a parrot. Sandro and I
prised him off his perch to accompany us to see a genuine Welsh great.
Gruff Rhys, the Super Furry Animals front-man and
all-round musical maestro, was touring in support of his third solo album, Hotel Shampoo. Gruff also gave that title
to the model hotel made from shampoo bottles he’d collected whilst drawing
rings around the world for the last fifteen years or so.
Half of me is certain that he’s an 8-ball short of a rack, while
half of me just thinks he has an unusual sense of humour. The other half wonders
why I failed my maths A-level.
Sane or not, he’s my favourite bearded musician and if he’s
in town with the Furries, Neon Neon, alone,
or even with Brazilian TV repairman Tony Da Gatorra (admittedly debatable), you
should check it out.
That he thinks he’s Lady
Gaga was a claim made by Sandro near the climax of the night’s performance,
for reasons that will become obvious (it wasn’t just the meat dress he was
wearing).
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Pre-gig, Sandro, Cousin Bish and I met for a couple of ciders and some
food at O’Neill’s.
“Hello sunshine!”
Sandro greeted me cheerfully. “Are we just gonna play it cool tonight or go
loco?” he asked.
“Go loco? It’s
Wednesday night! Surely you can’t be serious?” I replied.
“I am serious,”
Sandro replied, “and don’t call me Shirley.”
Looks like I picked
the wrong week to quit drinking.
We passed the time by
discussing the recent and possibly ground-breaking news regarding Oxide and
Neutrino. Or something. It was all a bit over my head, but I had the feeling it
was an important development. From what I gather time travel in a DeLorean is
still light years away, but Sandro seemed excited by the possibility of
superfast jellyfish.
Gruff’s gig was at St David’s
Hall, which meant we’d be seated. Unfortunately,
we weren’t allowed to take our drinks into the auditorium as the good people there
didn’t trust us enough to not smash our glasses and cause chaos, which was a
mild inconvenience. They also refused entry to anyone wearing spectacles, which
I thought was fair enough.
As a result, when supporting North Walian surf rockers Y Niwl began, we listened from the bar and
watched via the handy screens. Y Niwl are an instrumental band who’ve already
achieved great things early in their collective career. Like Gruff, they are
nominees for the inaugural Welsh Music Prize and more impressively still, their
track ‘Undegpedwar’ is the current
theme tune for Football Focus.
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We entered in time to
witness a few of their tunes first hand. There were no crazy naked girls but a
curtain behind the band displayed the projected image of a young lady dancing
in her underwear, repeating the same few seconds over and over. It was an old
fashioned black and white image, so unless the projectionist was cleverly
deceiving us all, the dancing lady could well be an OAP by now. Fine by me, as
long as it wasn’t Marge.
Different sections of her
dance looped during each of Y Niwl’s
tunes, which were indistinguishable to the untrained ear.
“Is this the same tune as
the last one?” Cousin Bish asked at one point.
“No, it’s not,” I replied
perceptively. “She’s shaking her hips a lot more for this one.”
When the band finished we
desperately rushed upstairs to the bar for another pint. Sandro, ever the
innovative drunk, also cunningly purchased a bottle of coke and double vodka
which he then mixed in secret. “There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of bad
behaviour,” he said.
Looks like I picked the
wrong week to quit smoking.
We spotted some members of
the Welsh A-list among those in the bar area. The splendid Euros Childs was in
attendance, as was fabulous furry bassist Guto Pryce. Miniature man from Dirty
Sanchez, Pancho, was also present and even Wales’ 23rd sexiest man
Dante Tyte was also around somewhere. Thankfully there was no sign of Gavin
Henson.
-------
It was dark in the auditorium, but with my night vision I could just
about make out a few empty seats, which was surprising considering the love for
Gruff in the capital. The members of Y
Niwl returned to act as his band and they were received with wild applause.
Gruff dedicated his show to Bert Jansch, the folk legend who had died that day,
which was a nice touch.
His performance was divided into three halves, and featured a mixture
of Welsh and English language songs. Though there were no SFA or Neon Neon songs,
the frequency of hits was still remarkable.
The sugary sweet title track to his second solo album, ‘Candylion’, was played early on, and there
was room for a rendition of ‘In a House
With No Mirrors’ from his collaboration with Tony Da Gattora, which Gruff
rightly suggested was the heaviest thing we’d hear tonight. In wild contrast
was a new song called ‘Whale Trail’, which
is the theme tune to an iPad and iPhone game of the same name. Its accompanyingvideo is truly spectacular.
Gruff introduced the songs ‘Pwdin
Ŵy 1’ and ‘Pwdin Ŵy 2’ in his own inimitable fashion. “It’s a story
in two parts. . . about someone. . . who
is happy at first. . . and then sad. . . Errr. . . ” he said, gathering moss as
he spoke.
Sandro and I popped to the loo during ‘Lonesome Words’ and returned with more vodka and coke to the tune
of ‘Sensations in the Dark’ which was
apt, considering what we caught lonesome Cousin Bish doing when we returned.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
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The interval for Gruff
proved not to be an interval for the audience. If you’ve any interest in seeing
Gruff’s exquisite Patagonian road movie Separado!
I advise skipping the next few paragraphs, as they’ll spoil the lovely
denouement to that film.
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Separado! sees Gruff set out
on a journey to South America in search of a distant relative named René
Griffiths, an Argentinian whose ancestors fled Wales and settled in Patagonia
in the late 19th century. Griffiths arrived in Wales himself in the
seventies and became famous among Welsh speakers as a Latin-Welsh troubadour,
before leaving without a trace.
After travelling
through Brazil and Argentina, Gruff finds that René is long gone. As you may
have guessed, he does find him eventually. In Cardiff. René was here again tonight
to play a couple of songs.
He had a natural
stage presence a great Latino guitar playing style. “When I left Argentina for
Wales,” he said introducing a song called ‘Heno,
Mae’n Bwrw Cwrw’, (Tonight, It’s Raining Beer) “my family told me it was
more important to know how to drink, than to speak the language.” Sandro wholeheartedly
agreed.
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Gruff returned for a grand second part to his own set, which
including the likes of ‘‘Honey All Over’ and
‘Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru’. ‘Shark Ridden Waters’ was a fine faux-finish,
and was applauded by all present, though no-one was daft enough to depart yet (except
for a big fella in the front row with shaggy hair).
As we waited for an encore, a throne was brought on stage,
prompting Sandro’s Gaga observation. It was actually just a pair of aeroplane
seats, which hinted at what was to come. Gruff returned to the piano to play a
Welsh language song that preceded the fifteen minute epic, Skylon.
Skylon is a
harrowing yet humorous tale about the eponymous bomb disposal expert, who saves
a plane full of passengers, goes on to marry the actress/media personality
who’d stolen his window seat and has a child with her, selling the photos for a
reputed one million dollars. It’s quite a closer.
Not many people would finish on such a song, but I guess the
man don’t give a fuck, and with one final “Thankyouverymuch!” he was done for
the night.
All that was left for us, was to run away into the night to
catch a bus for the first time in Gigaweek history. The bus driver seemed nice
enough. Thankfully, there were no bombs to defuse on board, and there was
little chance of having a money-making lovechild with Sandro or Cousin Bish.
Although, Sandro did ask me if I’d ever seen a grown man naked.
Although, Sandro did ask me if I’d ever seen a grown man naked.
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October
1-7 – Pete & The Pirates + Gruff Rhys - ✓
8-14 – Emmy The Great
15-21 – Sŵn
22-28 – Sŵn + John Mayall
1-7 – Pete & The Pirates + Gruff Rhys - ✓
8-14 – Emmy The Great
15-21 – Sŵn
22-28 – Sŵn + John Mayall
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