On This Day 27/05/1999 Kenny Rogers

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On this day, 27 May 1999, American country music legend Kenny Rogers, played Cardiff International Arena.

He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences, but also charted more than 120 hit singles across various genres, topping the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres - jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.

Review - South Wales Echo

Review - Cynon Valley Leader

In 1999, Rogers scored with the single "The Greatest", a song about life from a child's point of view (looked at through a baseball game). The song reached the top 40 of Billboard's Country Singles chart and was a Country Music Television number-one video. It was on Rogers's album She Rides Wild Horses the following year (itself a top-10 success). Also in 1999, Rogers produced a song, "We've Got It All", specifically for the series finale of the ABC show Home Improvement.

On This Day 19/05/1995 Chuck Berry

On this day, 19 May 1995, rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

A pioneer of rock and roll, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high school life, and consumer culture, and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Review - South Wales Echo

Review - South Wales Argus

On This Day 14/05/1995 Klaus Wunderlich

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On this day, 14 May 1995, famous German easy listening organist Klaus Wunderlich played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

Wunderlich was born in Chemnitz. He played the Hammond organ model C3 then mid 60s changed to model Hammond H100. Wunderlich also tried new sounds and released an album exclusively played on Hohner instruments: model Planet T, Clavinet D6 and String Melody string synthesizer (also branded as Logan String Melody).

With the introduction of the first synthesizers, Wunderlich briefly used Moog synthesizer and produced three albums with the instrument. He later combined the sound of a Hammond organ model H 100 with a Lowrey Organ Model H25-3 and Wersi model W248S which was called the "New Pop Organ Sound". Wunderlich switched to Wersi organs permanently with the introduction of the Wersi Helios model in 1976, with which he created his own unique electronic sound.

During the course of time, the Wersi Helios was not sufficient to keep up with current technology and trends so Wunderlich started to use Wersi Beta Dx400. The Beta was then combined with the Wersi Helios to again create a unique sound. The 1980s saw Wunderlich purchase the Wersi Pianostar electronic piano which he used for rhythm guitar effects only.

In 1988, Wunderlich decided to part company with the Wersi Helios and Beta and purchased a new organ to replace both older models, the Wersi Spectra.

Wunderlich also used a small Moog synthesizer Minimoog to replicate the sound of the Bass guitar on his recordings as well as in the latter half of his career playing the drums and percussion on his recordings.

As a musician Wunderlich was open to different music styles and played classical, operetta, Broadway musical, as well as popular music. He sold more than 20 million records globally, and received 13 golden albums as well as one golden cassette.

Wunderlich died in Engen.

On This Day 10/05/1995 Tanita Tickaram

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On this day, 10 May 1995, British pop/folk singer-songwriter Tanita Tickaram played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

She had recently released her fifth studio album Lovers in the City. Jennifer Warnes provided backing vocals on four tracks on the album. One of these songs, "I Might Be Crying", was released as lead single.

A video for this single was filmed in Vietnam. The album reached No. 75 in the UK charts. "I Might Be Crying" was the first single to be released from the album, and peaked at number 64 in the UK.

"Wonderful Shadow" was the second single to be released and peaked at number 198 in the UK. "Yodelling Song" was the third and last single to be released and then only in some countries in continental Europe.

Review - South Wales Echo

Upon its release, John Harris of NME praised Lovers in the City as "shockingly decent", with Tikaram "coming out of it looking like someone who's worthy of sharing lunch with Tori, Bjork or Kate Bush". He commented on how Tikaram had "binned most of the forced intellectualism that made her sound like an eternal undergraduate" and "turned her straining, fractured baritone into something of an asset".

Setlist

You Make the Whole World Cry

Men & Women

Hot Stones

Out on the Town

Feeding the Witches

Happy Taxi

Heal You

Elephant

World Outside Your Window

Twist in My Sobriety

Good Tradition

Yodelling Song

Preyed Upon

On This Day 04/05/1994 Deacon Blue

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On this day, 4 May 1994, Scottish rock band Deacon Blue played Wales National Ice Rink in Cardiff on their In Your Town tour. The support was provided by The Dreaming.

Original advert for the rescheduled concert

The 1994 tour was originally scheduled as 'In Your Town - Part 2' for November 1993. Tickets went on sale in July, with extra dates added in September. It wasn't long after the extra dates went on sale that ticket holders were informed that the tour was postponed due to 'recording commitments.'

Review - South Wales Echo

The tour eventually took place after the release of the Greatest Hits album. Early in the Tour, the news leaked out that the band were splitting up, and two extra shows were added at the Glasgow Barrowlands.

Setlist

Will We Be Lovers

Raintown

Bound To Love

Fergus Sings The Blues

Your Swaying Arms

Real Gone Kid

A Brighter Star

Love & Regret

Love's Great Fears

Still In The Mood

When Will You...

Your Town

Only Tender Love

The Day That Jackie Jumped The Jail

Bethlehem's Gate

Wages Day

Dignity

Goin' Back

Chocolate Girl/I'll Never Fall In Love Again

Queen Of The New Year

Twist and Shout/Twist and Shout Your Town

On This Day 03/05/1991 Bleach

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On this day, 3 May 1991, indie rock band Bleach played Cardiff University.

From Ipswich, the band is usually considered part of the shoegazing genre. The band was formed in 1989 by brothers Neil and Nick Singleton (guitar and bass, respectively) together with drummer Steve Scott and vocalist Salli Carson.

Their first release was the Eclipse EP in 1990, followed in 1991 by the Snag EP. The tracks from these two EPs were collected on an album in 1991.

They recorded two Peel sessions, in 1990 and 1991, which were broadcast on BBC Radio One.[3] 1992 saw the release of the full-length album Killing Time, and the single "Shotgun", a surprising mixture of shoegazing and rap.

In 1993 the band released two separate mini-albums, Hard and Fast. The group disbanded shortly thereafter.

On This Day 29/04/1993 Boney M

On this day, 29 April 1993, disco greats Boney M played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

Founded in 1974, the band achieved popularity during the disco era of the second half of the 1970s. The band was created by German record producer Frank Farian, who was the group's primary songwriter and singer.

Originally based in West Germany, the four original members of the band's official line-up were Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica, Maizie Williams from Montserrat, and Bobby Farrell from Aruba. Since the 1980s, various line-ups of the band have performed with different members.

The band has sold millions of records worldwide and is known for international hits including "Daddy Cool", "Ma Baker", "Belfast", "Sunny", "Rasputin", "Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring", "Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday", "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" and "Gotta Go Home".

1992 saw a renewed interest in Boney M.'s music with the Boney M. Megamix single returning the group to the UK Top 10 for the first time since 1980, and a subsequent Greatest Hits album, Gold – 20 Super Hits, reaching the UK Top 20 in 1993. While Marcia Barrett, by then living in Florida, had cancer and was unable to perform, Boney M. toured the world with a line-up of Liz Mitchell, Carol Grey, Patricia Lorna Foster and Curt Dee Daran (replaced by Tony Ashcroft in 1994). They released the single Papa Chico but failed to chart. Maizie Williams assembled her own Boney M. with an ever-changing line-up. Bobby Farrell also toured with varying trios of female performers.

Liz Mitchell was touring the world with her line-up of Boney M., which was the only line-up officially supported by Farian; the court ruling of 1990 stated that all four members are entitled to perform their own Boney M. shows. Bobby Farrell and Liz Mitchell have released solo albums containing their own re-recordings of Boney M.'s classic hits.

On This Day 22/04/1997 Catatonia

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On this day, 22 April 1997, Welsh band Catatonia played Cardiff’s Coal Exchange on their Way Beyond Blue tour.

The band formed in 1992 after Mark Roberts met Cerys Matthews. The first major lineup featured Dafydd Ieuan of Super Furry Animals on drums, Paul Jones on bass, and Clancy Pegg on keyboards. With this line-up the band recorded two EPs, For Tinkerbell and Hooked.

Pegg was fired prior to work on their first studio album, Way Beyond Blue, and during the recording of the album the band was joined by drummer Aled Richards, replacing Ieuan, who left to focus full-time on Super Furry Animals. During the live promotional appearances for the album the band was joined by guitarist Owen Powell. This latest incarnation of the band lasted until its dissolution in 2001.

The single "You've Got a Lot to Answer For" received radio airplay and became the band's first top 40 single in the UK Singles Chart in September 1996.

Their breakout success came at the start of 1998 with the International Velvet album and the release of the single "Mulder and Scully" some two weeks apart. The album went to number one in the UK Albums Chart, and sold more than 900,000 copies being certified triple platinum by British Phonographic Industry, while the single reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart, the highest any Catatonia single would chart.