On This Day 30/09/1983 Depeche Mode

On this day, 30 September 1983, electro-rock band Depeche Mode played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on the band’s Construction Time Again Tour.

Construction Time Again was the group’s third studio album and the first to feature Alan Wilder as a member, who wrote the songs "Two Minute Warning" and "The Landscape Is Changing". The album's title comes from the second line of the first verse of the track "Pipeline".

It was recorded at John Foxx's Garden Studios in London, and was supported by the Construction Time Again Tour.

Review - South Wales Echo

In January 1983, shortly before the release of the "Get the Balance Right!" single, songwriter Martin Gore attended an Einstürzende Neubauten concert, giving him the idea to experiment with the sounds of industrial music in the context of pop.

This album introduced a transition in lyrical content for the group. Construction Time Again would include a bevy of political themes, sparked by the poverty Gore had seen on a then-recent trip he had taken to Thailand.

The album also saw a dramatic shift in the group's sound, due in part to Wilder's introduction of the Synclavier and E-mu Emulator samplers. By sampling the noises of everyday objects, the band created an eclectic, industrial-influenced sound, with similarities to groups such as the Art of Noise and Einstürzende Neubauten (the latter becoming Mute labelmates in 1983)

Review - South Wales Argus

Setlist

Everything Counts

Now, This Is Fun

Two Minute Warning

Shame

See You

Get the Balance Right

Love, in Itself

Pipeline

The Landscape Is Changing

And Then...

Photographic

Told You So

New Life

More Than a Party

Encore:

The Meaning of Love

Just Can't Get Enough

Encore 2:

Boys Say Go!

On This Day 19/09/1995 The Everly Brothers

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On this day, 19 September 1995, rock and pop legends The Everly Brothers played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

The American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop, becoming pioneers of country rock.

The duo was raised in a musical family in Central City, Kentucky, first appearing on radio singing with their father Ike Everly and mother Margaret Everly as "The Everly Family" in the 1940s. They gained the attention of Chet Atkins through Merle Travis and subsequently moved to Knoxville, Tennessee while still in high school. Nashville musicians like Atkins began to promote them for national attention.

They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems". In 1960, they signed with the major label Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.

Long-simmering disputes with Wesley Rose, the CEO of Acuff-Rose Music, which managed the group, and a growing drug usage in the 1960s, as well as changing tastes in popular music, led to the group's decline in popularity in its native U.S., though the brothers continued to release hit singles in the U.K. and Canada and had many highly successful tours throughout the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the brothers began releasing solo recordings, and in 1973 they officially broke up. Starting in 1983, the brothers got back together and continued to perform periodically until Phil's death in 2014. Don died seven years later.

The group was highly influential with the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.

On This Day 23/07/1990 Aztec Camera

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On this day, 23 July 1990, Scottish band Aztec Camera played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall. The band or more notably leader and songwriter Roddy Frame had just released his fourth album Stray.

Stray was praised for its diversity of songs and styles, and for the assured nature of Roddy Frame's lyrics (which had been considered the weak-point of some of his earlier material). Its understated production was also received positively, particularly coming after the group's previous album Love, which sold well in the United Kingdom but had been criticised by some for being too sanitised and glossy.

Review - South Wales Echo

Stray peaked at No. 22 in the UK Albums Chart. The single "Good Morning Britain", a collaboration with Mick Jones, reached No. 19 in the UK Singles Chart.

Stray Tour Band (1990)

• Roddy Frame – guitar, vocals

• Eddie Kulak – keyboards

• Gary Sanford – guitars

• Clare Kenny – bass guitars

• Frank Tontoh – drums

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 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, 07/04/1989 The Commodores

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The members of the group met as mostly freshmen at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in 1968, and signed with Motown in November 1972, having first caught the public eye opening for the Jackson 5 while on tour.

The band's biggest hit singles are ballads such as "Easy", "Three Times a Lady", and "Nightshift"; and funk-influenced dance songs, including "Brick House", "Fancy Dancer", "Lady (You Bring Me Up)", and "Too Hot ta Trot".

Commodores were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The band has also won one Grammy Award out of nine nominations. The Commodores have sold over 70 million albums worldwide.

The group gradually abandoned its funk roots and moved into the more commercial pop arena. In 1984, former Heatwave singer James Dean "J.D." Nicholas assumed co-lead vocal duties with drummer Walter Orange.

That line-up was hitless until 1985 when their final Motown album Nightshift, produced by Dennis Lambert (prior albums were produced by James Anthony Carmichael, who would continue to work with Richie on his albums), delivered the title track "Nightshift", a loving tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, both of whom had died the previous year. "Nightshift" hit no. 3 in the US and won the Commodores their first Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals in 1985.

On This Day 20/03/2005 Erasure

On this day, 20 March 2005, synth-pop duo Erasure played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on their Erasure Show Tour The band had just released their eleventh studio album Nightbird.

Nightbird received mixed reviews and was only a moderate commercial success, charting no higher than number 27 in UK. Despite the mixed critical reception, many longtime fans of the band hailed it as a return to the sound and feel of classic Erasure albums like Wonderland and Chorus. Singer Andy Bell's revelation that he was HIV-positive just prior to the album's release shed new meaning on the songs' introspective and sometimes melancholy lyrics.

A massive concert tour accompanied this album which travelled across Europe and the UK as well as North America. The tour, dubbed The Erasure Show, featured the extravagant set designs and costume changes Erasure is known for. The tour wrapped up in June 2005.

The album graphic artwork was made by the British artist Rob Ryan.

The album's first single "Breathe" entered the UK Singles Chart at number four – Erasure's highest peak since "Always" hit number four in 1994. No singles from the album charted on the U.S. "Breathe" became Erasure's second number-one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart – their first being "Victim of Love" in 1987.

Setlist

Mr Gribber and His Amazing Cat - Intro

No Doubt

Hideaway

Phantom Bride

Knocking on Your Door

The Circus

Breathe

Ship of Fools

Drama!

All This Time Still Falling Out of Love

Stop!

Rapture

(Blondie cover)

Ave Maria

(Charles Gounod cover)

Breath of Life

A Little Respect

I Broke It All in Two

Chains of Love

Chorus

Love to Hate You

Blue Savannah

Always

Who Needs Love Like That

Oh l'amour

Encore:

I Bet You're Mad at Me

Sometimes

On This Day 16/01/1999 John Cale

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On this day, 16 January 1999, Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer and founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

The previous year, Cale spent on tour with singer Siouxsie Sioux. In February, he was the curator of one day festival called "With a Little Help from My Friends" that took place at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with the presence of the Metropole Orchestra.

The concert was shown on Dutch national television and featured a song specially composed for the event and still unreleased, "Murdering Mouth", sung in duet with Siouxsie and her second band the Creatures.

Cale and Siouxsie then did a double bill tour in the US for two months from late June until mid-August, both artists collaborating on stage on several songs including a version of "Venus in Furs".

Cale's autobiography, What's Welsh for Zen?, was written in collaboration with Victor Bockris and published in 1999 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Review - SouthWales Echo

To promote the book he tours Europe with the John Cale trio (with Mark Deffenbaugh & Lance Doss, starting at St Davids Hall, Cardiff - January 16.

Setlist

Lament

On a Wedding Anniversary

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Buffalo Ballet

Chinese Envoy

Child's Christmas in Wales

Some Friends

Darling I Need You

You Know More Than I Know

Ship of Fools

Set Me Free

Leaving It Up to You

Cable Hogue

Cordoba

(Brian Eno & John Cale cover)

Dying on the Vine

Heartbreak Hotel

(Elvis Presley cover)

Fear Is a Man's Best Friend

Style It Takes

(Lou Reed / John Cale cover)

Thoughtless Kind

Hallelujah

(Leonard Cohen cover)