Bedlam @ Great Hall, Cardiff University Students Union
Fri 27 Oct
People Just Do Nothing, BBC Three’s sleeper comedy hit about a spliff-huffing posse of pirate radio chancers, is on its fourth series and doesn’t show much chance of slowing down. One of the biggest reasons for the show hitting the mark quite as well as it has done is its unashamed reverence for garage and the culture around it. The minds behind the series are genuinely in to UKG, and as their appearances om 1Xtra and various appearances at festivals and on the road attest, they’ve got credible DJ/MC chops to back up their on-air clowning. In fact, the series never actually shows the gang as being bad at their craft, per se – far from it – they just happen to be socially dysfunctional wallies. Not dissimilar to lots of touring DJs, in fact.
So, it’s great news that Grindah, Beats, Steves, Decoy and Chabuddy G are parachuting into the Great Hall for an evening of naughty basslines and very meta humour. Marvel at Grindah – the best MC on the planet! Gasp at Chabuddy G’s ‘girth’! The only questions left to be answered is whether Steves will be in any shape to play at all and if Beats has managed to sort out his childcare arrangements.
This season of the beloved series has seen Kurupt FM – the station which the crew of characters run – engage in a ‘war’ with local rivals Kold FM (a nod for the heads to seminal London station Kool FM) so it’ll be interesting to see how the narrative plays into the on-stage antics. It’s a concept that club music hasn’t really had before, save perhaps for Matt ‘Superhans’ Smith’s forays into DJing a few years back – and this could probably be best described to the layman as Spinal Tap goes UK garage. In fact, just as Buzz was going to press, Kurupt FM announced that it has inked a deal with XL recordings, home to both Radiohead and Adele, and will release an album called The Lost Tape later this year. A tantalising prospect indeed.
Tickets: £16. Info: 029 2078 1458
words KRISTIAN DANDO