live reviews
ROYAL BLOOD Swansea Arena, Sat 19 Mar
It’s not often you’d want the roof blown off a brand new building, but that’s what Brighton duo Royal Blood did on Saturday night at Swansea rena. Originally scheduled to be the first national name to grace its stage, after a minor date rearrangement they’re merely the first music headline act – but the wait was worth it.
Berkshire quartet The Amazons support with a short but sweet set of hits which prime a growing crowd – one that could have been bigger but for an unfortunately slow queuing system at the door – for the night ahead. Royal Blood themselves start later than scheduled, and the Arena auditorium is packed by 9pm.
Typhoon and Boilermaker kick off the set, prompting fists in the air and pints ying. Swansea is up for this, likewise oyal Blood vocalist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher, whose thunderous style and ferocious playing are relentless from the start. Lights Out and Come On Over come next in non-stop fashion, leaving crowd and band barely a chance to catch a breath.
For just two individuals, they create a unique sound. Thatcher’s drumming is out of this world, while Kerr’s bass playing more closely resembles a lead guitar. Hook Line & Sinker follows Trouble’s Coming: there’s moshpits forming and crowdsurfers galore. The duo on stage look to be enjoying themselves, professing to be thankful of the chance to “blow away some cobwebs” after four months without playing live. You’d never have thought: Kerr and Thatcher seem tight, faultless and geared up both vocally and musically.
New tracks Honeybrains and Million To One get their live debuts, peppered in between hits like Little Monster (with drum solo included and How Did We Get So Dark?. The main set ends with three absolute belters in Ten Tonne Skeleton, Loose Change and Figure It Out.
The encore begins with the amboyant err sat alone at a piano, a total ip on the set so far, and All We Have Is Now sounding almost out of place, albeit beautifully performed. Limbo and the head-thumping Out Of The Black end the set at 100mph.
words OWEN SCOURFIELD photos ANTHONY CONWAY
DE LA SOUL Tramshed, Cardiff, Sat 19 Mar
“I love daisies! I love daisies! I love pushin’ up your favourite daisies!” De La Soul MC Pos declared, over 30 years ago, in the build-up to the first verse of D.A.I.S.Y Age. The image of the pivotal hip-hop group as upbeat ower-hugging hippies has followed them ever since, despite assertations by Pos, when I spoke to him for Buzz earlier this month, that this had never been their manifesto.
“It wasn’t as if it was a mission statement creatively for us,” he said. “The way we just had fun and wanted to present ourselves, we saw nothing holding us back. “We were a like-minded people who allowed each other to feel comfortable in a room.”
After anniversary celebrations for the 1989 breakthrough release 3 Feet High And Rising were postponed because of you-know- what, De La Soul returned to Cardiff without a cause, without a mission statement – but, inevitably, with great life, warmth and energy, like the first day of spring.
I’ll always marvel at those times when an artist can truly get a big room bouncing, and Pos and Dave have spent three decades writing the book on hypnotising a crowd with an outstretched hand.
Pure daisy energy has kept that first album fresh, and the fellas young – though now in their 50s, for all the best reasons it was clear the kids never grew up.
These are rappers at the top of their game, with three decades of never-dwindling relevancy and quality in the face of the very worst curses of an industry that threatened to torpedo their legacy, from a watershed moment in music to some 90s record store curio. DJ Maseo wasn’t present, but praying all is well, the three founding members look to be – in Pos’ own words – “transitioning” to a brand new phase. A new album is on the cards, all their original albums are to stream online at last, and a fervent desire to never grow stale remains.
words JASON MACHLAB photos EMMA LEWIS
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