Well wasn’t last night a massive four-edged festival of glee. I’ve written so much now about Fredrick Stanley Star there’s not much else to say – they are one of Cardiff’s most interesting and charismatic bands and were on cheerful form. It’s always going to be tricky to impress on a bill as long as this, and at such an early part of the evening. The band was also dogged by slight sound troubles, and were frustrated at times, so its definitely worth seeing them again at Swn this Saturday (Buffalo, 7.30pm) if you are yet to bathe in their full, unfettered glow. I love them like a newborn baby, coochee coochee cooooo.
Brontosaurus Chrous could wear their indie boys and girls badges with pride last night. The band has about 200 members, forming a kind of mini-Architecture in Helsinki kind of arrangement on stage. They’re a busy, energetic force, an achievement considering this kind of music can easily slip into the kind of sentimental twee-mageddon that Steve Lamacq was so fond of. But they’re focused talented muscians and produced some of the most gleeful and joyful music of the evening. I hear this was their first trip to Cardiff – they’d be welcome on a return visit. They were the perfect introduction to the first Kiwi visitors of the evening, Lawrence Arabia. According to my twitter, I said they were “a bit country”, which seems terrible facile now. At its heart most indie has some folk root, its just that some bands bear them more readily than others. Lawrence combines acoustic guitars and harmonies with bittersweet lyrics; Leonard Cohen if he developed a jangly, sarcastic streek. Tonight there was more emphasis on the jangly, and in person aren’t as tinged with the kind of tragedy you can hear in their lyrics. They were still a great watch though, but its worth getting the CD to appreciate the sadness and whimsey in the some of the songs which doesn’t communicate well when everyone’s having such a damn good time.
I never thought I’d like Afrobeat and I hated Vampire Weekend. I love Ruby Suns. They clearly don’t take themselves too seriously, well appreciated at Howard Gardens which, by the time they took to the stage, was dancing like a sweaty dog on hot coals. Other than when Lawrence Arabia joined the band later in the set, Ruby Suns were almost entirely electronic. The curse of the knob twiddler failed to fall and they engaged through the whole, blissful set. Their eclectic influences add to the atmosphere and are well suited to the music, rather than feeling hemmed in with sticking plaster. It was great to see something so unconventional be so well received. Not everybody should sound like them, but what often counts for alternative music is often highly ordinary and standardised. Like Gang Gang Dance, MIA and others before them Ruby Suns fiddling with the boundaries of what it means to play this kind of crowd, sounding playful and not pretentious. More of the same, please.
