Blog: Cardiff

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Steve and I ROLLED into Cardiff last week to continue our pre-Edinburgh touring of Total Hero Team. Once we'd checked into Our Usual Suites at the Ibis we popped round the corner to the Trader's Tavern to meet Mr Chris Evans (not that one), famed proprietor of GoFasterStripe. We'd been trying to actual meet in person for AGES, so it was lovely to see him and also his KIDS - Steve and I went into FULL UNCLE MODE, as CARD GAMES were explained, heads were RUFFLED, and we marvelled at the ageless joy of Kids Running Round A Pub. The only thing we both forgot was to pick someone up and turn them upside down - NEXT TIME!

We then popped over to Gwdihw to meet Mr J Morris, promoter for the evening, to reassure him we were in town, then went out for TEA. Unable to find a curry house we instead went to a Fairly Posh Italian Restaurant which, apparently, it THE FAVOURITE of The Stereophonics. GLAMOUR!

That done it was back to the venue to see the first of the two supports for the evening, Francesca's Word Salad, who turned out (after much THINKING) to be a.k.a. Fran From The School. She was GRATE, and now sits at the top of my list of People Who I Want To Get For Totally Acoustic When I Start It Again. After her was Shiny Tiger, who I enjoyed also, but at a different angle - he was really serious about DOING his songs, had a lovely turn of phrase and very DISTINCT kind of song all his own, with traces of other people sometimes - it felt like he was STARTING to find HIS VOICE, and was determined to get there. I liked!

And then it was time for me and Steve to hit the stage. In all honesty, it was Quite Hard Work - we weren't using microphones, and the room was steadily getting people coming in for the CLUB NIGHT later, so there was a bit of chatter and wandering around - this was of course FINE, as people had come for the later thing, but it didn't half make it difficult to maintain THE SHOW. The LULLS - which the live Dinosaur Planet experience suffered so much from - were back, and as we were doing it I kept thinking "There's SO MUCH we can cut!" To be fair to US, we DID carry on and enjoyed the songs especially, but this was the first Slightly Difficult gig we've done for this show. It's VERY GOOD INDEED to do one, as it serves to TIGHTEN UP, and I'll be doing some re-writes over the next couple of weeks!

That done we RELAXED and had CHAT with some delightful people, also DRINK,including some dead good WHISKY from nearby Penderyn. It was NICE!

Next morning we headed back to the station, passing the Motorpoint Arena where Eddie Izzard had played the night before. We were astonished to see he had THREE massive articulated LORRIES - why on earth does a solo stand-up need THREE massive articulated LORRIES for his tour? Steve suggested maybe he brings his own CHAIRS, I looked down at the Big Bag Of Props and was grateful that we don't need to - they'd never fit on the train!

posted 21/5/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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