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On this day, 6 August 2013, pop band The Vamps played Cardiff University. The band consisting of Bradley Simpson, James Brittain-McVey, Connor Ball and Tristan Evans formed in 2012 and signed to Mercury Records (now Virgin EMI Records) in the November of the same year.
James McVey, who was already managed by Richard Rashman and Joe O'Neill of Prestige Management decided he wanted to form a band, McVey subsequently discovered Bradley Simpson in 2011 through YouTube.
Together, the pair wrote songs towards the later months of 2011, with Simpson later becoming the lead singer. In 2012, Simpson and McVey met Tristan Evans through Facebook. The trio then met Connor Ball via a mutual friend. In mid-2012, the band started uploading cover songs to their YouTube channel. By October, they were being described as a new boy band, with special attention given to their YouTube performance of One Direction's song "Live While We're Young".
On 22 July 2013, the band uploaded their first original song, "Wildheart" (later re-titled "Wild Heart"), onto their YouTube account; the video received over 46,000 views within the first two days. On 6 August 2013, they released the music video for their debut single "Can We Dance", which received over 1 million views within two weeks. "Can We Dance" was released on 29 September 2013 and debuted at number two on the UK Singles Chart on 6 October 2013; beaten to number one by OneRepublic's "Counting Stars", which sold 1,250 copies more.
On 19 November 2013, the band announced that they would release their debut album around Easter. On 22 November 2013, the Vamps announced that their second single would be "Wild Heart". The song received its first airplay three days later and was released on 19 January 2014, peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart the following week.
