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:
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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.
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