BILL RYDER-JONES | LIVE REVIEW

The Moon Club, Cardiff, Fri 11 Mar

The Moon is packed for tonight’s performance by Bill Ryder-Jones, erstwhile of the Coral, and now carving a successful career for himself as an introspective and sensitive songwriter; and although there are a smattering of younger faces here, it’s definitely more of an Uncut-cum-Mojo demographic in the house tonight.

The songs on offer here don’t stray far from the template set by his previous band: there’s sunny pop that nods to Teenage Fanclub and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, but there’s also a more melancholic strain running through the music. Ryder-Jones’ most recent single, Two To Birkenhead, with its lyrics speaking of desperation and a yearning for freedom, exemplifies this wistful streak. Certainly this song elicits the biggest cheer of the evening, and the number of heads nodding along and mouthing the words suggests that it speaks to a shared experience.

Midway through the set Ryder-Jones performs a couple of solo numbers, but it’s when playing with the rest of his band that his performance is most compelling. A cover of Two Lines by Domino stablemates Lightships is one of the highlights of the set – a delicate shimmer of a song played with sensitivity, while set closer Satellites alternates between tender verses and crashing choruses, before building to a freak-out climax.

words and photos DAVID GRIFFITHS