Live Music: Elbow, CIA, 23/3/11

Guy Garvey from Elbow. Photo courtesy of Guus Krol

For anyone who hates Elbow and is hoping to read a blog post where I’ll describe Guy Garvey & co as pretentious, talentless twats, you might want to go elsewhere. You’re not going to want to hear that these guys put on the best show I’ve seen in ages which has left me listening to them obsessively ever since. Sorry.

I’ll admit, despite the fact that they have been in existence for nearly 20 years, Elbow have remained on the peripheries of my music collection, apart from their obvious commercial hits, but I unexpectedly found myself with a ticket for their big performance in Cardiff’s expansive CIA and wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.

First on though was Irish band Villagers, who caused quite a stir last year with the release of their debut album Becoming a Jackal. They put in a strong, dark performance, but as my gig buddy pointed out, seemed a little bit like they hadn’t managed to outgrow their state of being moody teenagers. This is particularly in reference to the mumbled comment to the crowd, explaining “This song is about losing your sense of self”…lighten up guys.

As for Elbow, they delivered a simply flawless performance – but without being too obviously staged and polished. After a pretty cool visual Harry Potter-esque backdrop of the band members in photo frames, fidgeting every now and again, the band appeared on stage and the time just sped by.

Elbow playing trumpets to track 'Starlings' from The Seldom Seen Kid album. Photo courtesy of Guus Krol

It was a fairly even mix between material from the recently released album Build A Rocket Boys and older songs, particularly from the career changing The Seldom Seen Kid record. The track Lippy Kids from the new album, the title comes from a line in the song, is the first that has been released. It’s hard to imagine how a song that is essentially about a group of chavs hanging about on a street corner could sound so heartbreakingly nostalgic…such is the awe of Mr Garvey’s voice, which was astonishing all night. All I can think to compare it to is a warm bowl of porridge with syrup; it has gravelly bits whilst being sweet, comforting, and it belongs to a bear.

Obvious highlights have to be the energy generated by the performance of Grounds for Divorce and the finale One Day Like This, but it was the little extras that made it really memorable. One of these applies most to a Mr Adrian Jones, who got a personal mention, a moment in the spotlight, and a song made up with his name in – all because he was officially the member of the audience who was officially furthest from the stage. I think that’d definitely make up for having crap tickets.

As I left with the crowds of people, climbing over piles of plastic beer bottles, I was happy in the knowledge that I had just witnessed a group of people at the peak of their profession that have so far avoided becoming nonchalant or big-headed about their success, like so many do. And they don’t wear sunglasses indoors, Bono.

Interview: Jolly Hollie

Sat quietly tapping away on his laptop in a corner of Cardiff’s Old Orleans bar and restaurant, you wouldn’t necessarily think that the man hiding under his baseball cap is busy replying to PR types, charity workers, and maybe even Terry Wogan. But he is.

Jolly Hollie, real name Andrew Middleton, is a born and bred Cathays man, and has lived in Cardiff for the majority of his 31 years. After playing guitar on stage with Chuck Berry at the tender age of 16, Andrew set his sights on being a full-time performer.

This didn’t initially go to plan and he had to let plastering pay the bills while the music was kept as a hobby for the evening. His popularity gradually grew, and he was known around town as ‘Andy the Ant Man’. “12 years ago I wrote a song about an ant, a super ant, and the name just stuck,” he says.

Jolly Holly performing in the Owain Glyndwr pub

Unfortunately ‘Andy the Ant Man’ had also stuck for a rapper in America. ‘Jolly Hollie’ was just a joke to begin with, but because it is memorable and has positive connotations Andy kept it. “And people now think I’m a woman. I’ve got a large male following – they’re all ones that haven’t seen me yet!” he laughs. “Some of the students dig it, they think it’s really cool.”

Now a full-time occupation, Andy plays in various pubs and clubs around Cardiff in the evenings, usually just with his guitar taking requests from the audience. Luckily he has an aptitude for remembering tracks, “I’ve got quite a lot of songs just in my head – maybe 200 or more. People just shout them out” he says.

It is not just Andy’s music that attracts interest; over the years he has done a lot of fundraising and donating for charity, including buying a young girl a drum kit, and organised many gigs where the takings have gone to charity. “I think it’s fair to say, without sounding big-headed about it, that anyone who knows me would say ‘Oh, that’s Andy, that’s what Andy’s like’” he says, with a modest shrug.

After his mammoth three-month stint of putting on performances in aid of LATCH charity, which raised £4000, Andrew says the highlight of any charity work he’s done came when he went to visit his friend’s daughter in hospital. She had been given vouchers from LATCH to spend. He recalls, “She had these vouchers, and my friend said to me ‘You got her those’, and I was really chuffed, it makes you realise what you’re doing it for.”

More recently, Andy undertook the challenge to swim 10K. Beginning as a wine-fuelled idea, Andy jokingly commented on a YouTube video which featured Terry Wogan complaining that there was no link boat from the shore to a cruise ship he was going on. Andy giggles as he remarks, “just as a random thought halfway through my glass of wine, and I commented on the video, and said ‘I’ll swim instead of you Terry.’”

Surprisingly, this resulted in a phone call the next day, and it escalated to the point where Andy was preparing to swim around the cruise ship and break a world record for swimming the furthest distance in the ship’s on board pool. Due to the volcanic ash cloud this was unable to go ahead, so Andy did the 10k swim in a normal pool. It was a valiant effort though: “I got praise from Swim UK to say it was Olympic standard – that was nice,” he says.

Andy’s thirst for adrenaline still hadn’t been quenched, and he is now in training for something even more out of the ordinary. “I’m going to tow a boat full of people from Penarth to Cardiff,” he says, like it’s something people do every week.

After being given permission to train at the white water rafting centre, the whole project is very hush-hush and still in the early planning stages; Andy has ripped a muscle in his shoulder whilst testing out dragging a dinghy. If all goes to plan it will take place some time next year. Andy says, “This will also be a mark for starting triathlons in the bay, in the future. It’d be nice to be the first person to ever swim in it before they open in up.”

To see what Jolly Hollie gigs are coming up soon, please see his official website.

You can also follow Jolly Hollie on Twitter.

Swn Festival. 21-23 October.

The third annual Swn Festival descended on Cardiff for three days of alternative musical offerings at venues across the city. Thursday and Friday night, and all day on Saturday saw over 150 bands play. They are all up-and-coming acts, having been hand picked by the festival’s organisers, Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and Cardiff promoter John Rostron.

One of the reasons why Swn Festival works so well is Cardiff’s range of small, quirky venues positioned conveniently close together. They can be seen on the map below:

View Larger Map

Several of the venues are quite small, which is great as they tend to house bands that are really new and have smaller followings, meaning you can wander into a pub like Dempsey’s and witness a really intimate performance with an amazing new band. There is also quite a high possibility that the band is local, as part of the Swn philosophy is to give a platform to Welsh acts that might not get the chance to play to an audience much bigger than their local village pub.

There was a lot of music over the three days, so I shall only delve into some of my personal festival highlights which would definitely be worth having a listen to or keeping a lookout for next time they are on tour.

The first of these is the Big Scary Monsters record label showcase at Y Fwuch Goch on Thursday night. This featured Dad Rocks, Stagecoach, Mimas, Tall Ships and Talons.

Unfortunately a traffic malfunction meant we missed Dad Rocks, which is a shame as his photo in the Swn leaflet wearing a silver shiny astronaut’s costume made him more than a little bit intriguing.

Stagecoach had a lot of fun in their set, which culminated in the band having a wander around in the audience/on the bar, giving away a guitar to one lucky fellow in the front row, and generally infecting everyone with their shouty brand of pop-rock.

Mimas, clad in their matching purple and yellow hoodies, gave us an offering of quirky tunes, with a particular highlight being the band dissembling the drum kit and basically bashing the hell out of it, creating some great tension – not least because it meant a lot of underwear was put on show.

Tall Ships doing some instrument swapping

Tall Ships, a favourite of mine, never fail to deliver a varied and absorbing set, from soft synths to all out growling guitars and pounding drums, the band swapping instruments between them throughout. A technical fault meant they couldn’t play to their best, but it happens, and the guys coped with it well.

Lastly at Y Fwuch Goch, Talons ended the night with an atmospheric and explosive set of their instrumental math-rock, complete with violins. It was a shame that the venue was so brightly lit, as some murky, brooding darkness would have complemented the music much better.

Young Legionnaire rocking out

Young Legionnaire at Chapter Arts Centre on Friday night was another great experience. It’s a personal preference point, but I really like it when bands have a bit of a chat to the audience – only if they’re funny, mind. Young Legionnaire were though, even sharing their secret song formula with us, “NOISE, stop, NOISE, stop. Do you get the idea?” Their brand of post-hardcore rock is incredibly loud, yet melodic, and had my ears ringing for hours afterwards for all the right reasons.

Cate Le Bon

Lastly, highlights from Saturday would have to be Calories with their solid performance of catchy indie rock, starting their set all wearing some interesting sunglasses because they’d heard Swn Festival was cool…

My First Tooth was only announced to play a couple of days before the festival, and were a real hit with their energetic folk-rock (‘fock’?) Plus, they had a harmonica, you can’t argue with that.

I don’t even know how to describe Cate Le Bon, but I do know that I would like to be her. Her totally individual style that seems to blend ghostly folk and pop with melancholic vocals with a thick Welsh accent, and a little bit of synth thrown in for good measure is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

Finally there was the legendary Welsh band Islet. Everyone was hyped to see them, and they reciprocated the excitement, bounding around the stage, in the crowd, climbing on speakers, drumming on the ceiling, anything they could to produce their percussion-heavy sound that has to be seen to be believed.

All in all it was an exhilarating, exhausting and educational few days. Swn turns five years old next year, now that will have some special stuff in store…

I also took some photos, of varying quality.