Album of the Month: Peter Garrett, A Version of Now

 

Peter Garrett, the former front man of Midnight Oil, popped up in my social media algorithm and I had a sudden thought that I might own one of his solo albums. I checked the CD shelves. Cathy helpfully suggested it might be in with the Midnight Oil CDs and sure enough, there it was, ready for me to have a listen.

This album was released 10 years ago and, according to the sleevenotes, was a product of Peter Garrett writing his memoir of life as the frontman of one of Australia's best known bands and his subsequent commitment to environmentalism and land rights that led him into politics. 

Peter recorded this album shortly before Midnight Oil reformed for the Great Circle tour in 2017 (which we went to!) and it does feel like a warm up piece. Oils guitarist Martin Rotsey plays on it and both late bassist Bones Hillman and the other guitarist Jim Moginie helped co-write a track each. 

Peter's explanation for the origin of the album

So, with that level of involvement from his band mates, it's no surprise that this sounds very much like Midnight Oil Lite. The tracks are melodic, reflecting more of Rotsey's guitar style. It was also a family affair with Peter's three daughters all contributing in some way, including harmonised backing vocals on the opening track. 

Overall, this is a musically solid, reflective album with some lovely emotional tracks on. As a solo project (at least in theory) it stands up with the output of the band, which is unusual. Definitely one to listen to if you are a Midnight Oil fan, like me, or even if you're not, it's a very accessible collection of tunes that I think many people would enjoy hearing. 

Details

Year of release: 2016

Tracks: 9

Favourite track: Kangaroo Tail, with it's line of "coming home to blue hills, in the morning". It gave me a small sense of hiraeth. 

Track to skip: There are only 9 tracks and the songwriting is very lean, so I haven't been skipping any. 

Gig review: Creeper (Tramshed, Cardiff)

I was absolutely delighted when Creeper announced their short autumn tour and my locallest venue was on the list. They are a band I have really fallen for this year and going to a gig that's walking distance from my house was brilliant.

Creeper's frontman William Von Ghoul promised theatrical vampire horror metal and we got it, along with a coffin, a guillotine and a throne decorated with skulls - several bulky props on the Tramshed's limited stage. 

Prepping the guilloutine

There were two support bands. I arrived shortly after the 7pm doors opening time to find one of the bands, Starburners, had started their set. I liked their sound, which was heavy gothy and rocky. 

Starburners

The second support act, Calva Louise, played Latin American inspired scream metal. They were alright, but either the mix was bad or my hearing wasn't up to it because it felt ragged. I wasn't as keen on their set as Starburners but I liked the lead vocalist who also played guitar and keyboards and talked to us about her move to the UK from Venezuela.

Calva Louise

Before the main event, a curtain was raised to hide the stage. Then we were treated to some back-projected theatrics as we were told that the show was being censored. This was greeted with loud boos until the censor was brutally axed to death.

The set started with Blood Magick and the crowd were into it straight away shouting "Drink the blood!" at the appropriate points. Incidentally, this is the first gig where I've been offered (fake) blood, from one of the many vampires in the audience. Some people went full on with the make up, other made do with a splash of blood on their chin.

The Mistress of Death appears

I had a decent spot right in the middle of the crowd, but during the third song a 'wall of death' opened up and I moved off to one side. The sound mix was unbalanced for me after that, which I think is a thing at the Tramshed. The sound is great right in the middle but deteriorates as you move to the side. 

I ended up quite close to the front so got a really good view of the theatrics that preceded Razorwire. The female vocalist, Hannah, who sings that song emerged from a coffin. I like that track, it's a burlesque lounge piece and Hannah was dressed to match.

I was surprised they didn't play the song Mistress of Death considering the Sanguivore theme is all about her. I also wished they'd played Chapel Gates off the first Sanguivore album. 

William got guillotined at the end of the set but reattached his head for the encore - three songs from their pre-Sanguivore days. The crowd's enthusiastic response to the early stuff seemed to genuinely move William who thanked us for a great night and said how Cardiff had given them some of their most special nights as a band.

And that was my first Creeper gig over. The vampires in the audience melted into the drizzly night along with the rest of us.

Gig review: The HU

The HU are a Mongolian metal band that fuses heavy rhythms with traditional instruments and vocal styles to forge something quite special. Having discovered them this year, I was thrilled to have the chance to see them live when they visited Bristol last week.

I hadn't been to the gig venue, The Prospect Building, before. Fortunately my friend Dave from Bristol was able to help me with some local knowledge about parking. He also came with me to the gig and was excellent company for a very loud evening. (He took a lot of the photos in this post!)

Pre-gig selfie

The venue was great, with catering and bar area outside, well-organised inside with helpful stewards, and a suitably post-industrial aesthetic for the main warehouse room. A nice high stage gave good visibility of the band, although the amount of dry ice and vapour off the crowd combined with some of the lights rendered them invisible at times.

The support act were a Nordic-inspired pagan metal act called SKĀLD. The band had three percussionists and included a variety of unusual instruments including what I think was an elk skull, and also using horns. One of the percussionists had a shamanic vibe as he leapt between different drums. I enjoyed their set and found the rhythmic set very soothing.

The HU came on to loud cheers, bearing a militaristic looking standard. They lean heavily into the Mongol warrior mythos in both their look and their lyrics. Being Mongolian, banter with the crowd was limited but we were told they loved Bristol and we were thanked for our enthusiasm. 

The crowd was nicely age-diverse. Several oldies like me, but a real mix of ages appreciating the music. It was very gender-diverse as well and around where I stood it felt like the women in the crowd were enjoying it most. One woman next to me passionately sang the Mongolian lyrics to Echoes of My Father, which was impressive. 

The setlist was mainly from their recent album, HUN, and their breakthrough album Rumble of Thunder (which I reviewed in February). I was disappointed they didn't play Triangle, as I love that song. At the end they stayed on-stage to soak up the applause and seemed genuinely affected by the affection being shown to them.

A rapturous finale 

I bought a t-shirt. I saw people wearing t-shirts with 'Mongolia' written in the style of 'Metallica' but those must have been sourced elsewhere as they weren't on the merch stand in the venue. I chose the shirt with the tour dates on the back as a memento of a memorable night of Mongolian metal.

Back to the castle for our third gig of the summer

Yesterday we went back to Cardiff Castle for the second time in less than a fortnight, this time to see Bowling for Soup and Frank Turner on their joint 'Bowling for Bones' tour. There was additional support from American Hi-Fi. We arrived in time to see all three bands perform.

We had 'accessible' tickets this time so were on a raised area with seating some way off to the left of the stage. It meant we were near the castle keep.

Although being in the accessible area was helpful for Cathy, it was a lot colder than the previous gig we went to at the castle. And being on a raised platform meant the area was quite exposed. Cathy ended up putting on extra layers. It was quite a contrast to when we saw Garbage on the brink of a heatwave!

All the layers - including rain poncho!

American Hi-Fi were decent. They have a very early noughties pop-punk sound. I enjoyed their set. 

Frank Turner's set list included most of his faster, louder songs. He started with I Still Believe and played most of my favourite songs, finishing with Get Better. 

There were a couple of slower songs in the middle, like Wessex Boy, which he introduced with an apology for being from Southern England. He had previously expressed a love for playing in Cardiff and name-checked Clwb Ifor Bach as a "legendary" venue, that he had performed in very early in his career. 

Frank concluded his set by saying he had met a bunch of American tourists in the castle earlier who said they were in a band and so he had invited them to perform a set. He asked the crowd to stay for at least two songs. 

And then Bowling for Soup came on for the kind of mayhem they tend to bring to the stage. There are only two band members left from when we saw them play the Student's Union Great Hall 20 years ago, but we still got the full gamut of classics like Almost, High School Never Ends, Ohio, Girl All the Bad Guys Want, The Bitch Song and 1985. They also introduced their "most popular song" early in the set and played the theme song to Phineas and Ferb. 

I particularly liked their Cymraeg rebrand!

Music aside, there were lengthy, sweary, funny rambles in between songs, an on-stage giveaway of a signed guitar, a dragon, pyrotechnics and flame projectors. It was non-stop entertainment.

This was our third big gig in less than two weeks. It's been a hectic time but great that so many artists we like are coming to Cardiff making it easy for us to see them.

Garbage (thunder)storm the castle

Yesterday Cathy and I went to our second ever gig in Cardiff Castle. Three years ago we saw Bastille play there. This time we arrived shortly after a heatwave-induced thunderstorm.

We missed the opening act but we arrived in good time for the set from the main support band, Skunk Anansie. I even had time to buy a tour t-shirt and a decadent doughnut before the music started because Skunk Anansie were a bit late starting.

I really enjoyed their set. Although I said to Cathy that Skin, the lead singer, was in a totally unsuitable outfit considering the heat. She had to change out of her really heavy trousers after a few songs. 

Skin also went crowdsurfing twice, which impressed me. I discovered I liked several of the songs I didn't know more than the limited few I did know so I might well explore their back catalogue sometime.

The weather may have resulted in a few people not turning up as the performance area felt less crowded than I expected. I know it wasn't a sell out but I was pleasantly surprised at how much space we seemed to have without being ridiculoualy far back from the stage. 

Also, this is mega-gig week in Cardiff with massive concerts  every night at the Castle, Blackweir and the international stadium. There's obviously an upper limit on how many gig tickets can be sold in a week and it may be we have hit the upper cusp.

It was an interesting demographic in that the crowd seemed to skew more female. All three bands on the set list are fronted by women, which might have something to do with it. 

Garbage came on slightly earlier than expected, kicking off with the opening track off their latest album. They played several songs off that album (which I reviewed back in March) during the gig. I was surprised at some of them, including the gig finale when they played 'The Day That I Met God'. Amusingly, Shirley messed up the cue for that song and had a friendly go at Butch for leaving her hanging in an awkward silence. 

Garbage always used to be Shirley and three middle-aged dudes. Now it's Shirley and three old dudes. Shirley is still Shirley though, keeping time by fiercely stomping around in a circle during songs; amusing us with rambles and rants. 

The set list was a mix. They didn't play any of the poppier songs off Beautiful, but I was stoked to hear them play 'Control' from Not Your Kind of People. The old tunes were the bangers though. They gave 'Stupid Girl' a bit of a refresh and 'Only Happy When It Rains' was joyous. The singles off Version 2.0 are all strong songs and play well almost 30 years later. I was surprised they omitted 'Queer' from the set list and I was expecting them to play 'Witness to Your Love' but that didn't feature.

Overall, though, they played a cracking set. The new songs sounded better than I expected. I can tell Shirley really likes 'Chinese Fire Horse'. An unusual inclusion was 'It's All Over Bar the Crying', off the fourth album, Bleed Like Me. Shirley said they has never played it live before this tour, but she's a slightly unreliable historian. I enjoyed hearing it anyway and, of course, I sang along. 

Unusually, there was no encore as they played right up until the allotted curfew time. I quite enjoy the pantomime of cheering for a band to come back out but it didn't happen. It's hard to just turn the house lights on in an outdoor venue so they put up a message on the big screen about the exits. The castle keep glowed red and moody as we left.

Post-script

I know what you're thinking. How decadent was that doughnut? Well! Judge for yourself!

Album of the Month: Bwncath, III

I bought this CD because I heard it playing in a shop in Carrnarfon last summer as a brand new release. I took an instant like to it and bought a copy that was sitting next to the till. 

It's the first album I've ever bought recorded entirely in Cymraeg. I've chosen it as my album of the month this month because I've been listening to it while revising for my arholiad Lefel Sylfaen (Foundation level exam), which I'm taking on Friday.

This is the band's third album, released after they dropped from being a four piece to a trio. 'Bwncath' is the Cymraeg word for 'buzzard' and the album art is of three stylised buzzards reminiscent of Celtic art.

There are 10 tracks on the album and they are all pretty short. The band have a folk-rock sound, lots of harmonies, with most songs played at a tempo towards the rockier end of the scale. They bring in a children's choir for a slower song called 'Castell Ni', which is about Caernarfon castle. The kids sound like they're having fun and they turn a slow song into a singalong.

I really like the opening track 'Dy feddwl' (which I think means 'you think', could be 'your mind'). But my favourite track is 'Prydwen', which is a reference to King Arthur's ship in the Welsh legendarium, here used as a metaphor for being young and adventurous. The song has an echoed refrain 'Ddown yn ol, ddown yn ol, ddown yn ol at y gwir' ('we come back... it's the truth') before kicking into a key change and the chorus. 

Overall, it's a great album and accessible even with limited (or no) Cymraeg - Cathy doesn't speak Cymraeg and she says she likes it. (Which is just as well as she's been in the room while I've been revising!)

Details

Year of release: 2025

Tracks: 10

Favourite track: Prydwen

Track to skip: this is a very lean album, with short tracks that make their point with a minimum of fuss, so no need to skip any tracks.

Album of the Month: Garbage, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

I have tickets to see Garbage at Cardiff Castle this summer, which has prompted me to give a serious listen to another CD I got for Christmas, the album they released last year.

All being well, the castle gig will be my fourth time seeing Garbage after their debut album tour in 1996, and tours celebrating 20 years of their debut album in 2015, and 20 years of their second album in 2018. I blogged about the 2015 gig when I was clearly underwhelmed, judging by my gig review. I didn't blog about the 2017 gig, which was in the cavernous concourse beneath one of the stands in Ashton Gate stadium in Bristol.

More recently I "rediscovered" them when I got their 2-disc Anthology and then went on a buying spree of special edition re-releases. After I posted about the Anthology I even bought the 2-disc version of their first 'best of' that I had decided not to buy way back in 2007 (and blogged about not buying it!) It was cheap on eBay, so why not?

Let All That We Imagine Be The Light was a gift from my sister-in-law, Abby. It's got a striking cover, with a glowing octopus. The lettering is on a plastic sleeve that slips off the digipak, leaving just the octopus in all its cephalapod glory.

There are some recent pictures of the band inside the album sleeve. Shirley's got a blonde look now.

It's kind of fitting that Abby bought me this album because she was there when I first heard the band. I remember hearing my first Garbage song playing on a car radio. It was a sunny day and Abby was driving us somewhere around Newport Road in Cardiff. The band were brand new and were being profiled on a radio station and the track they played was Stupid Girl. I was instantly struck by their sound, went out and bought Only Happy When it Rains on a cassette single and that was the start of my fandom.

30 years later, listening to this album made less of an impact. There aren't many of the gut-punching power riffs that drove their debut album forward, and barely any of the catchy melodies that featured on their second or third album. The songs all run into each other and are a bit samey, both in tempo and style. 

Looking ahead to the summer, I'm sure some of these songs will be on the setlist in the castle. I'd guess they'll play the opening track, There's No Future in Optimism, the liveliest track, Chinese Fire Horse (Shirley's astronomical sign and a sweary angry warning not to disrespect her), the slightly bouncy Love to Give, and the closing track, The Day That I Met God. (That final track feels like such a Shirley song I would be amazed if they didn't play it.) 

I also wouldn't mind hearing them play the biting R U Happy Now. It seems increasingly relevant singing about the liars in power given how out of control the American president, and by extension, America, seems right now. However, there are four tracks in a row starting at track 3 that feel like filler tracks and that section of the album drags.

Overall, despite repeated listens, I don't feel many of the tracks have stuck in my head. I'll find out in the summer whether the new tracks will have enough live oomph to hold their own against the classic songs. 

Details

Year of release: 2025

Tracks: 10

Favourite track: Love to Give 

Track to skip: Have We Met (The Void) - the fourth track and the most filler of the filler tracks.

Bucket list gig: Thousand Yard Stare

I discovered Thousand Yard Stare in about 1992 when I bought a copy of Vox magazine that came with a free cassette that included one of their songs, Wideshire. When I moved to Cardiff in 1994 I found their album Mappamundi in a sale in HMV. I played that cassette to death in my room in uni digs. 

Mappamundi was their 'difficult second album'. The band split up almost immediately after releasing it and the 'shoegaze' scene they were part of declined rapidly. Over the next couple of years I collected most of their back catalogue. But I resigned myself to never seeing them live. 

Then about 10 years ago the band reunited and cut a new record. I had lost track of what they were up to and didn't realise until a couple of years ago, so I had another back catalogue to collect!

This tour was meant to happen last May but got postponed due to one of the band having health issues. It got rescheduled for the last day in February, which means it was my first gig in 2026.

I'd not been to the Louisiana before. It's a (lovely) pub with a gig room upstairs. A couple of years ago I met an online friend called Dave at a football match. Dave is also a gig-goer. He lives in Bristol and advised me to get close to the front at the venue. He wasn't wrong - it's a long room with no slope to the floor and a low stage. I ended up about 3 rows back and got a great view.

It's a standing only venue and Cathy found that hard so she headed back downstairs where there was a comfy sofa she could curl up on. She says the staff were all very kind when she said she wasn't feeling well. 

It might have been for the best that she went downstairs because the gig got a bit "moshy", no mean feat considering most of the people there were in my age bracket. Me, I felt 19 again, listening to songs I thought I'd never hear live.

And wow, they were good. They played a couple of post-reformation songs, but they knew what we wanted to hear and belted out the classics like Comeuppance ("our only hit"), Buttermouth, Wideshire, 0-0 (aet) and Version of Me. 

Stephen, the singer, introduced my absolute favourite track, What's Your Level? as "a song I wrote in response to people calling me a 'wordy twat'". They played it quite early in the set, and that's when it first got a bit moshy and sweaty. 

He is also the only singer I know who snacks on apples during a gig.

Stephen is heavily involved at Bristol Manor Farm FC (scene of my first football match after lockdown!) and had hung up some flags behind the stage. Some of the Farmy Army had come along to enjoy the show. Cue lots of banter as he kept scolding them to behave.

He also said that he didn't listen to the bands' second album until a few years back, because the band were splitting up as it was released and the reviews were negative. I was able to shake his hand at the end and tell him that I played that album until the cassette died and how much I loved finally seeing them live.

So that was my bucket list gig. Massive thanks to Dave for the advice, the great chats about gigs and football, and also sending me some of his photos to use in this blogpost!