On This Day 27/1/1979 Elvis Costello

On this day, 27 Jan 1979, Elvis Costello and the Attractions played Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens on their UK tour to promote the recently released Armed Forces album.
Support for the tour were New York punks Richard Hell and the Voidoids and punk poet John Cooper Clarke.
Armed Forces was the third studio album by Costello, released in the UK by Radar Records and in the US by Columbia in 1979. It was his second album with the Attractions, and the first to officially credit the Attractions on the cover. The album had the working title Emotional Fascism.

"I have loads of fond memories of playing in Cardiff. The first time I did a gig there was with Elvis Costello and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, who sort of invented punk. It was in Sophia Gardens in 1979 and we stayed in a place opposite the castle." - John Cooper Clarke,

Setlist

01. I Stand Accused
02. Lip Service
03. Girls Talk
04. Green Shirt
05. Party Girl
06. This Year's Girl
07. Lipstick Vogue
08. Watching The Detectives
09. Accidents Will Happen
10. Oliver's Army
11. Radio, Radio
12. You Belong To Me
13. Pump It Up
14. Mystery Dance - with Dave Edmunds

On This Day 26/1/1986 Red Wedge

On this day, 26 Jan 1986, a musical collective known as Red Wedge played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.
The group of musicians, formed in 1985 attempted to engage young people in politics and the policies of the Labour Party for the period leading up to the 1987 General Election hoping to oust Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government.
Red Wedge organised a number of major tours. The first, in January and February 1986, featured Bragg, Weller's band The Style Council, The Communards, Junior Giscombe, Lorna Gee and Jerry Dammers, and picked up guest appearances from Madness, The The, Heaven 17, Bananarama, Prefab Sprout, Elvis Costello, Gary Kemp, Tom Robinson, Sade, The Beat, Lloyd Cole, The Blow Monkeys, Joolz and The Smiths.

On This Day 24/01/2021 Judas Priest

On this day, 24 Jan 1978, Heavy metal rock band Judas Priest played Cardiff’s Top Rank on the band’s Stained Class Tour in support of the band’s album of the same name. It was part of a 61 date tour which included North America and for the first time Japan.

Twelve years after its release, Stained Class was the subject of a 1990 civil action brought against the band by the family of a teenager, James Vance, who entered into a suicide pact with his friend Ray Belknap after allegedly listening to "Better by You, Better than Me" on 23 December 1985. Belknap succeeded in killing himself, and Vance was left critically injured after surviving a self-inflicted gunshot to the facial area, eventually dying of a methadone overdose three years later. The suit alleged that Judas Priest recorded subliminal messages on the song that said "do it". The suit was eventually dismissed. The song was originally written and performed by the band Spooky Tooth.

Judas Priest
Rob Halford – vocals
K. K. Downing – guitars
Glenn Tipton – guitars
Ian Hill – bass
Les Binks – drums

Setlist

"Exciter"
"White Heat, Red Hot"
"The Ripper"
"Sinner"
"Beyond the Realms of Death"
"Victim of Changes"
"Better By You, Better Than Me" (Spooky Tooth cover)
"Genocide"

Encore 1:
"Tyrant"

Encore 2:
"Starbreaker"

On This day 22/1/1980 The Ramones

On this day, 22 Jan 1980, the legendary New York punk band The Ramones played Cardiff University, supported by The Boys.
The band was about to release their fifth album, End Of The Century, the band’s first album to be produced by Phil Spector.
Spector used more advanced standards of engineering, such as high-quality overdubbing and echo chambers. These painstaking methods caused conflict between the band and Spector, since the Ramones were accustomed to a quicker recording process.
Formed in 1974, the band is often cited as the first true punk rock group.
All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", although none of them were biologically related.
They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the Ramones played a farewell concert in Los Angeles and disbanded.
By 2014, all four of the band's original members had died – lead singer Joey Ramone (1951–2001), bassist Dee Dee Ramone (1951–2002), guitarist Johnny Ramone (1948–2004) and drummer Tommy Ramone (1949–2014).

SET LIST

Blitzkrieg Bop
Teenage Lobotomy
Rockaway Beach
I Don't Want You
Go Mental
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Rock 'n' Roll High School
I Wanna Be Sedated
Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?
She's the One
I'm Against It
Sheena Is a Punk Rocker
This Ain't Havana
Commando
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
I'm Affected
Surfin' Bird
(The Trashmen cover)
Cretin Hop
All the Way
Judy Is a Punk
California Sun
(Joe Jones cover)
I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World
Pinhead

Encore:
Do You Wanna Dance?
(Bobby Freeman cover)
Suzy Is a Headbanger
Let's Dance
(Chris Montez cover)

Encore 2:
Chinese Rocks
(The Heartbreakers cover)
Beat on the Brat
We're a Happy Family

On This Day 20/1/1960 The Platters

On this day, 20 Jan 1960, American vocal group The Platters, played the Gaumont Cardiff as part of their UK tour. The tour package included Cuddly Dudley and Carl Barriteau and his band.
Formed in 1952. They are one of the most successful vocal groups of the early rock and roll era. Originally, their distinctive sound was a bridge between the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the burgeoning new genre. The act has gone through several personnel changes, with one of the most successful incarnations comprising lead tenor Tony Williams, David Lynch, Paul Robi, Herb Reed, and Zola Taylor. The group had 40 charting singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1955 and 1967, including four number-one hits. The Platters are one of the first African-American groups to be accepted as a major chart group and are one of the most successful vocal groups in the world.

On This Day 15/1/1971 Uriah Heap

On this day, 15 Jan 1971, London band Uriah Heep, played Cardiff University as part of their UK tour.
Formed in 1969 the tour was to promote their recently released second album Salisbury.
The album, skewed towards the progressive rock genre, featured a 16-minute title track featuring a 24-piece orchestra.

The band maintains a significant following and performs at arena-sized venues in the Balkans, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia and Scandinavia. They have sold over 45 million albums worldwide, with their best-known songs being "Easy Livin'", "The Wizard", "Sweet Lorraine", and "Stealin'"

On This Day 14/1/1965 Chuck Berry

On this day, 14 Jan 1965, Legendary American Rock n Roller Chuck Berry played the Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, in a package that included, Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men, Graham Bond Organization, The Moody Blues, Winston G, The Five Dimensions, on a UK tour promoted by Robert Stigwood.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958).

On This Day 13/1/1977 Hall and Oates

On this day, 13 Jan 1977, American pop duo Hall and Oates played the Capitol Theatre, Cardiff, on their UK Tour.
Formed in 1970 in Philadelphia. The two write most of the songs they perform, separately or in collaboration. They achieved their greatest fame from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s with a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues.
The duo never really liked to be referred to as "Hall & Oates". In an interview with Esquire, Oates said, "There isn't one album that says Hall and Oates. It's always Daryl Hall and John Oates, from the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of 'Hall and Oates', this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked." In a 2015 interview, Oates noted that "it's a horrible name" and that "it was a totally conscious decision" not to be known as "Hall & Oates". "We didn’t want to be the Everly Brothers, or Loggins & Messina, or whatever."

The duo are credited as Daryl Hall John Oates with no "and" or ampersand on many of their releases.

Tour Setlist

Back Together Again
Rich Girl
Crazy Eyes
Do What You Want, Be What You Are
Lady Rain
Falling
Camellia
You're Much Too Soon
Is It a Star
I'm Just a Kid (Don't Make Me Feel Like a Man)
Sara Smile
She's Gone
Abandoned Luncheonette

Encore 1:
Ennui on the Mountain
Gino (The Manager)

Encore 2:
Room to Breathe