Cardiff Big Weekend (well, big friday, anyway)

More 2000 trees tomorrow, just wanted to write about the Admiral Big Weekend that was on this past weekend.
I went to the first day, due to Funeral For A Friend headlining, with the bonus that a mate from work’s band would also be playing.

Admiral Big Weekend is one of those free events that has live bands, a fairground, stalls and the like, that brings in swathes of total filth to pickpocket, fight and drunkenly ruin your day. But, there was FFAF… So needs must.

Joining the crowd as OK started up, it took two songs before a brawl broke out and three shambolic drunks – you know the type; late 30s, well built, bodies weathered by manual labour and a lifetime of cider drinking condensed into half that duration, leaving them a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging mess who’s only brain processes are drink, smoke and fight – stumbled away from the mini-mosh that had broken out.

As to be expected, these weekends are half-full of people who have never been to a gig in their lives, so when a moshpit starts they get aggressive that another human being has come into contact with them and try to put that person in hospital, be it another burly lug looking for a fight or a little kid thinner than the idiot’s bicep.
Kids were falling over in the pit, and no one was picking them up. I’ve been to some ROUGH gigs, but I felt more likely to be risking hospital than any Gallows or Metal gig.

If I’m painting a negative picture, don’t let it reflect on the bands, as they were great. Friday was organised by SWN, and if they can get these bands involved in their festival, I’d be pretty pleased.

I missed openers Death Before Sunrise, but OK were impressive; clearly nervous and excited to be on such a big stage between songs, they played like they do it all the time.
Their catchy, danceable songs would have got the crowd moving even if it wasn’t mostly made up of hyperactive, pissed-up teenagers. Needless to say, they had to mention they’d never had a circle pit for one of their songs before. While the end of ‘Blue In The Face’ built to a fantastic crescendo, they’re not a circle-pit band, but if they can pen tunes like ‘Lego’, they could and should be heading towards playing stages this size more often.
Obviously, you might assume bias, but check out the song in question below. If you don’t have it stuck in your head all day, then you’re deaf.

How good is that video?!?

Finally, it’s probably a joke made many a time, but I did love hearing this genuine crowd conversation:
“I don’t know who they are.”
“They’re OK.”
“Yeah, they’re alright.”

Attack! Attack! followed, and they’ve added a crunch to their sound live that goes down well with the crowd, inciting moshpits without asking. When they do incite the crowd, they clear a HUGE space for an impressive wall of death and get an admirable circle pit whirling. Sadly, during this set we get our first crowd-surfers, and one kid plummets over the barrier like a sack of crap as (hopefully due to budget rather than choice) there just aren’t enough security at the barrier(or. full stop).
Attck! Attack!s music isn’t the most gripping – the excellent ‘You And Me’ and ‘Honesty’ aside – but they play it well, proving the perfect warm up for the headliners.

Funeral For A Friend only had an hour set, but tackled it with a weird energy that was part festival set, part home-coming gig and part ‘larking about’. The set was a good mix of material from their back catalogue (though something from Memory And Humanity would have been nice), with newer songs like ‘Sixteen’ being as warmly received as ‘She Drove Me To Daytime Television’. ‘Juneau’ sends everyone appropriately batshit, and the anthemic ‘Into Oblivion’ from foolishly maligned Tales Don’t Tell Themselves. The pit is fierce, there are plenty of people more enthused with hurting people and being tough than enjoying a mosh, but the amount of people there to see the band is higher. Bodies sporadically fly over the crowd, but security have a slightly better control of it.
A screaming ‘numberonefan’ has his night made as Matt Davies-Kreye drops from the stage to let him sing the opening to ‘Red Is The New Black’ – it sounds awful, but it’s a great feeling considering the amount of gumpy idiots in the audience. Even if they haven’t been to a gig in their lives before, surely they would realise that other people are going to come into contact with them when there’s so many people around? Ugh.

It wasn’t the best set I’ve seen them play, but atmosphere can be sapped a little when you can’t hear stage banter because carbon copies of the cast of Skins are screaming because they think they’re on MDMA, and it can be a bit distracting when there’s someone with an argos chain pummelling your spine even when there isn’t even a bastard song playing. ahem. These things aside, the crowning moment for me was – as it was the last time – ‘Front Row Seats To The End Of The World’. Exquisite. It had been a rough week, I was feeling pretty shitty – and the number of dickheads in attendance wasn’t helping – but for all the bruises and the 40-a-day voice I had afterwards, it was worth it. It always is. I’ve seen this band a lot, and I’m not even remotely bored of them yet. They’ve never let me down and it’s always a cathartic experience. They always say the right things 😀