Cardiff report (part three)
Headlining the night was the highly tipped rockers, The Loves.
With a brace of high profile support gigs under their belts (Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), I was looking forward to seeing the band – as were the Actionettes who’d been booked to perform one song with the band, dance a full set afterwards and then DJ for two hours.
The evening was already running late when The Loves were due to go onstage. When they finally graced the stage, it was clear that lashings of alcohol – and quite possibly vats of industrial strength pharmaceuticals – had all been imbibed liberally by some members of the band.
Instead of launching into their set, the singer decided to treat us to a truly unique rendition of The Who’s rock opera, ‘Tommy’. It was awful beyond words.
Some members of the band appeared to gamefully go along with this deeply unrehearsed sonic assault, but it wasn’t long before a grand hissy fit broke out.
Band members stormed off in all directions leaving a trail of naughty words in their wake.
The Actionettes, sensing a night of chaos ahead, lobbied to go onstage, but any kind of decision making seemed beyond the drunken organisers.
In the end, the band returned to play an unremarkable set with the house lights coming on the second they finished.
Some of the crowd took this as their cue to leave, so by the time The Actionettes took to the stage, the place was half empty.
Undeterred, the Actionettes were determined to salvage something from the night, and put on a lively set of dance moves.
And then – to add insult to injury, the lights came back on after the third song and bouncers told everyone to leave.
Not the greatest of nights then!
