Ahead of headliners Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, tonight’s sacrificial lambs thrown to the chattering Cardiff masses buzzing with Bank Holiday weekend excitement are Ailsa Tully and her band. Initially, to borrow an album title, they burn their fire for no witness, but persisting with quiet, stoical assurance pays off, as mellow, mellifluous songs like Salt Glaze gradually start to cut through the hubbub and capture attention. Tully points out that the headliners have borrowed her merch guy for the evening, but his T-shirt shows where his true allegiances lie. On another night, there could have been many more converts.
And now – as the saying goes – for something completely different. If Tully was understated, the same certainly can’t be said for second support act, Alice Low. 14-minute-long debut single Ladydaddy is a camp masterpiece – a frankly astonishing joyride through the 1970s, taking in Sparks, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Iggy Pop, disco, big balladry and lounge lizardry – and the live Low experience is pure performance art, the best karaoke set you’ve ever seen.
She mingles with the crowd, preaches from a moveable makeshift podium on the dancefloor, gradually disrobes and at one point disappears through the bar, down the stairs and re-emerges on stage. It’s a display that demands zero inhibitions and complete commitment to carry it off – and carry it off she does, in style, until the sound cuts, leaving her high, dry and (half-)nakedly exposed on a box in the middle of the room. The mind boggles at how this and songs like Rim Job went down with the matinee audience.
If there’s a better live band in Wales than Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard, then I’m yet to hear of them. It feels like the quartet have been on the brink of a major breakthrough for a while (no thanks to the pandemic), and now they finally have the debut album to do it. Bringing their earlier influences (T Rex, Queen, AC/DC) into dialogue with the likes of Elton John and ELO, Backhand Deals is a blast from start to finish – just like tonight’s show, which is their first opportunity to perform the songs for a hometown crowd since the record’s release in February.
At one point, frontman Tom Rees announces that they’ll stop with the album tracks and stick to the hits – but every song on Backhand Deals could be a single. Good Day is vocal harmony heaven, Feel The Change! borrows from Warren Zevon’s Werewolves Of London so effectively it’s instantly forgivable, and big ballad A Passionate Life, with its Hey Jude-esque “la la la” coda, has a timelessness that’s easy to aim for but near-impossible to achieve.
But the record isn’t merely a rose-tinted romp in the ballpool of 70s radio rock. Its big tunes are a Trojan horse for Rees’ very contemporary lyrical concerns, whether it’s the sarcastic social commentary of New Age Millennial Magic, the ode to self-care You or the fist in the face of those destroying local venues Crescent Man Vs Demolition Dan.
This inevitably means that former favourites like 30,000 Megabucks and Magic Christian Mountain have fallen by the wayside, and sadly there’s no space in the set for Backhand Deals’ most magical moment, Yourself, either. But John Lennon Is My Jesus Christ remains present and correct, as do Hollywood Actors and closing duo Double Denim Hop and Love Forever, performed with customary swagger and style.
Three years ago, in the same venue, I hailed Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard’s celebration of “the inestimable joys of messy, sweaty salvation”. 19 months later, when they performed a lockdown show to an empty room, that heady night seemed like the dim and distant past. Tonight, Rees laughs, “it’s like the Amazon rainforest up here – 99 per cent humidity”. Messy, sweaty salvation is back, baby.
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sun 17 Apr
words and photos BEN WOOLHEAD
