First’s the worst, second’s the best…
March 12, 2010 at 10:11 pm | Posted in music | Leave a commentTags: bristol, bristol academy, cardiff, cardiff arts institute, cia, live music, performing right society, the glob, the point, valleys, will young
…Or so the rhyme went, when I was a kid. Cardiff has been declared the second most musical city in Britain. Pretty good, hey?
This comes as a result of research by the Performing Right Society (PRS). Bristol placed top, according to the number of musicians the city has produced, relative to the size of its population. Bristol has a fair amount of good musical memories for me – growing up in Exeter, it was the nearest stop-off for many bands when touring. By the time I was 17 or so, my parents could have dropped me at the Academy in their sleep; it was where I went during my teenage years to see bands that I now cringe to think of. Good times.
Cardiff has a special place in my heart, though, after three-and-half years of being a student here. There are so many lovely venues here and – despite having lost The Point and The Globe being under threat – this doesn’t seem to be deterring the opening of new venues such as Cardiff Arts Institute. I’ve been to some brilliant gigs here, as well as some decidedly patchy ones. Oh, and I once had to go and see Will Young at the CIA, but that was under sufferance for work.
I’m intrigued to know exactly how they defined which artists were counted – I’m not being impertinent; I genuinely am curious. Did the musicians have to have reached a certain level of success in order to qualify? And, with regard to Cardiff, where was the cut-off point, area-wise? Would a band from the Valleys count, say? Send answers on a postcard (or, equally, just post them as a comment on this post.)
We might not have reached the top spot, but we still have Swn festival. So there. Beat that, Bristol.
Flagging up the debate
February 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm | Posted in music | 2 CommentsTags: bristol academy, festivals, flags, glastonbury, jamie t, leeds, live music, reading, t in the park, tv coverage
Should Glastonbury ban flags? It’s an issue that Eavis and co are currently grappling with, asking fans what they think. They’re not the first festival to do so: Reading and Leeds banned flags last year. But it’s still a hot topic of debate.
I have never taken a flag to a festival: I don’t see the point in them. Is it just so that you can tell your mum to watch the TV coverage and look out for you? Plus, if you’re there – or even if you’re not, and are trying to watch the TV coverage – it’s really annoying when a completely unneccessary flag keeps obstructing your eyeline.
Then again, flags can make for amusing banter. I once repeatedly bumped into someone with a badger flag at T in the Park, which never ceased to provoke a mass sing-song of the ‘Badger Badger Badger’ song. It was fun, though I was only 16 at the time. 16-year-olds have a warped view of what’s funny.
Also, I guess that any gig has the potential for idiots. I went to see Jamie T at Bristol Academy on Wednesday night, and ended up stood next to a drunk guy who seemed to find it hilarious to shout “wheyyy!” at what were literally two-minute intervals. Whichever of his friends had encouraged him in this pursuit, telling him that it was really amusing, was sorely at fault. I was severly tempted to ask him why he’d bothered paying £15 to act like a twat when he could have done it for free in a pub, but I was worried this would only spur him on.
Surely no amount of flags could ruin festival moments like these?
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