On This Day - May 21, 2014 - Nine Inch Nails, Cardiff Motorpoint Arena

Nine Inch Nails, at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, was a visual and aural assault on the senses. For an hour and forty minutes, they played almost non-stop – the only breaks being the encore and testing a synth pad which had “blown up”.

Nine Inch Nails are officially a one man band, fronted by Trent Reznor. However for this tour he was joined on stage by Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini and Ilan Rubin. The tour was their first in the UK for six years, and follows the release of their critically acclaimed album Hesitation Marks last September. I’ve been a fan since the mid 90’s and have somehow managed to miss them touring before, so was I was looking forward to this. And they didn’t disappoint.

Right from the off the show was run with military precision, the huge lighting rigs constantly moving, changing colour and pulsing in time with the music. The band silhouetted against a bright background later in the show was particularly effective. Nothing about the show seemed too over-the-top or extravagant, it all came together perfectly for a brilliant performance.

There were quieter moments during the loud, brash guitars and synths based tracks, but there was no lull or moments when then crowd were any less captivated. My favourite tracks were Wish, Gave Up and the set closing Closer, which were just outstanding. Nine Inch Nails played as hard as their name suggests. And I’ll be there the next time they tour.

Courtesy of South Wales Argus

Setlist

1. Pinion / The Eater of Dreams

2. Copy of A

3. The Beginning of the End

4. Letting You

5. March of the Pigs

6. Something I Can Never Have

7. Reptile

8. The Becoming

9. Survivalism

10. Gave Up

11. Sanctified

12. Closer

13. Me, I'm Not

14. Came Back Haunted

15. The Great Destroyer

16. Hand Covers Bruise

17. Beside You in Time

18. Wish

19. The Hand That Feeds

20. Head Like a Hole

21. Hurt

On This Day - Ice Rink Cardiff - May 20 1992

The arrival of American rock band KISS attracted thousands of fans at their sold-out Cardiff Ice Rink concert on May 20 1992. 
Earlier in the day the band met their fans during an in-store appearance at HMV in Queen Street. 
The queue was quoted by an employee as being longer than the one for Tom Jones earlier that year. 
More than 4,000 fans packed the Wales National Ice rink for the band's only Welsh date on their tour of Britain. 
However it wasn't all good news for the band as during the show, of which Wales' National Ice Rink was by far the smallest venue of the tour. 
During the performance, pyrotechnics were set off and burnt a hole in the ceiling, which ended up costing the band £20,000
There were reports that the band actually made a loss on this tour and one can not help but think that Cardiff's fire incident played a major part .

Set List

1. I Stole Your Love

2. Deuce

3. Heaven's on Fire

4. Parasite

5. Shout It Out Loud

6. Strutter

7. Calling Dr. Love

8. I Was Made for Lovin' You

9. Unholy

10. 100,000 Years

11. Take It Off

12. God of Thunder

13. Lick It Up

14. Firehouse

15. Tears Are Falling

16. I Love It Loud

17. Love Gun

18. Cold Gin

19. Detroit Rock City

20. I Want You

21. God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II

22. Rock and Roll All Nite.     

On This Day - 18th May 1980: The 40th Anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis.

18th May 1980 is the 40th Anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis.  

Curtis was the lead singer and lyricist of the post-punk band Joy Division and recorded two albums with the group: Unknown Pleasures and Closer.

The band unfortunately never played Cardiff despite two recorded attempts detailed below and South Wales fans never got to see Curtis and his iconic band.

17th November 1978: Cardiff University CANCELLED

Joy Division were meant to support The Rezillos and the Undertones on this date of their joint Tour.

However after the Rezillos had a bust up at the gig at the Odeon Theatre, Canterbury 14th Nov 1978 they cancelled nearly all of the rest of the to - including all the dates Joy Division were to have played.

3rd November 1979: Sophia Gardens, Cardiff (cancelled)

.This concert was cancelled. The South Wales Echo were still advertising tickets for sale on Thursday 1st November, but in Friday 2nd's edition there was a "CANCELLED" sign stamped across the advert.

Mark Anderson didn't see the paper ... he tells us "I turned up not knowing of the cancellation and was told by box office staff that it was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. I do not know if this is correct but am relating what I was informed at the time".

It is more likely that the concert was cancelled because Ian had suffered a lengthy seizure at the Bournemouth  concert the night before.

Books that call the venue "Sofia" are incorrect.

Introducing our Tuition Directory

We at Keep Cardiff Live want to be a resource for all in the Cardiff Music Scene, this includes folks new to the music industry or those new and looking to learn.

We have begun to build a directory of local tutors which we will continue to expand on as time goes by. We always wanted to have ways to give back to the music community and are so happy to be able to offer one way to help budding musicians find a teacher, whether newcomer or experienced musician looking to tune up their skill set. Our directory is fully searchable based on the instrument you wish to learn, as the directory grows you will be able to search for a teacher who will perfectly suit your needs.

Keep checking the directory as it grows and we add more experienced local tutors!

Little Richard - Rock & Roll Icon

Today we are sad to have said goodbye to a rock & roll icon who’s impact on modern music will be felt forever.

Little Richard last visited Cardiff when he played St David’s Hall on the 2nd of May 2005, but has performed here many times before.

One memorable performance was the tour of 1963 with Duane Eddy, we are lucky to have images of the programme from the performance on 13th November 1963 at Sofia Gardens.

Another Cardiff performance was recalled with fondness by Bill Wyman. According to Wyman it was in Cardiff that Little Richard went down a storm. “Little Richard brought the house down, when he jumped off-stage, went up the centre aisle followed by members of the audience, out the front doors, then back in through a side exit and back onstage. He then proceeded to partly undress and throw pieces of clothing into the crowd. He performed way past his scheduled time. His manager would stand side-stage and yell to him 'Richard! Stop preaching', to get him off.” His set was normally 'Long Tall Sally', 'Rip It Up', 'Tutti Frutti', and 'Lucille' – it doesn’t come more high-octane than that!

Rest in Peace

Little Richard - 1932 - 2020

45 Years on - Peter Ham

Yesterday marked the 45th anniversary of the passing of Peter Ham.

On 23rd April 1975, the Welsh singer/songwriter and member of Badfinger committed suicide at Weybridge, Surrey. At the time he was depressed with band-related issues and label and management problems following the band leaving Apple Records (being one of the first bands signed to the label).
Ham's greatest songwriting success came about when his co-written composition "Without You" which quickly became a worldwide number-one hit when it was later covered by Harry Nilsson and released in 1972. The song has since become a standard and has been covered by hundreds of singers. An Ivor Novello award for Song of the Year was issued in 1973 along with Grammy nominations.
On 27 April 2013, an official blue plaque was unveiled by the Swansea City Council to honour Pete Ham in his home town of Swansea. The event was attended by two former members of the original Badfinger band, The Iveys, Ron Griffiths and David Jenkins, plus former Badfinger member Bob Jackson.

A conversation with Alun Tomos

Keep Cardiff Live caught up with Alun Tomos, Course Leader for BA Popular and Commercial Music at USW and mad axeman. We chatted about creativity, Welshness and, of course, guitars...

(Photography credit: Glenn Dene)

A conversation with Chris Kelly

Chris Kelly is a Cardiff born musical slogger who has worked is way up the ranks from a 16 year old soul singer to the 47 year old musician and director of musical team building company www.rockatwork.co.uk

Chris found success in LA in the late 90’s with his mod inspired outfit The Scooters, and he now lives a vicarious rock n Roll life style through the young people and adults that he puts through ‘rock star’ training. Chris is currently back in the studio recording his new album.

Find out more about RockWork here!

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