GENTLEMAN’S DUB CLUB | LIVE REVIEW
Y Plas, Cardiff University Students Union, Sun 16 Feb
Even for Sunday night, the city centre was eerily quiet. Storm Dennis was phoning ahead with aimless face-slaps of wind that snuffed out your lighter and then whipped the fag from your hand for good measure, and the Taff was giving dry land some very ugly looks. Against a backdrop of this and other Wizard Of Oz imagery, a crowd had assembled in the skeleton of the new Cardiff SU construction for Gentleman’s Dub Club, hail or hangover be damned.
As they approach 15-odd years together, GDC have become a beloved part of UK hippy culture. In the world where US bands like No Doubt took 2-tone ska and buffed it up for the 90s charts, GDC buffed it up for Boomtown; the accessible pop sensibilities of Madness but with all the decades of edgier offspring dub, drum‘n’bass, and dubstep to season the meat. The Leeds-based crew trooped on stage in their suit jackets and fedoras and had the largely student crowd – with probably at least one Boomtown in each of them- screaming.
In the hurly-burly of boring modern life, I always seem to forget that the Welsh (including me) love ska, and one trumpet parp is all it takes in Cardiff to get a packed venue stamping like there’s ants. The girl in front was having an incredible time based on how much of her hair whipped into my nose, mouth, and pint. I poured out my brand new soggy toupee and made sure I had a different spot for the drum‘n’bass bit; opener, Bristol rapper Gardna, returned and GDC’s twin drummers cracked into some regulation breaks. Later on, the band sprung into two minutes of regulation dub; Moog synth bass and delay pedals and everything.
Their music is as a pastiche: the suit and ties, the little genre showcases; Gentleman’s Dub Club aren’t reinventing the wheel here. Technically they were absolutely on point and the energy was outstanding, but fans of sinister dub lured in by the band name would have had something unexpected, but lovely, on their plate. Just a good-time band, for sunny summer days and, as it was, driving winter storms.
words JASON MACHLAB photos JON HERRON