MONEY | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sat 20 Feb
It’s apt that after yet another storm of biblical proportions sweeps across South Wales, Money rains down on Cardiff, bringing their suite of songs celebrating life between the gutters and the stars – a place where many of the Saturday night descendants on Cardiff’s St Mary’s Street belong. Manchester duo Bernard and Edith, in the role of support, are ushered in by the sound of rain; Edith, with a nice line in pelvic thrusts, straddles FKA Twigs and Kate Bush. Incapable is their most effective song, ironically preceded by Edith upending her beer, mid-gyration.
Money frontman Jamie Lee starts off solo and acoustic, like a busking preacher, standing outside the protective circle of monitors and lights, to make the performance even more intimate for this criminally sparse Clwb audience.  Lee is joined by bandmates Cocksedge on piano and Byron on drums for You Look Like A Sad Painting…, dedicating it to all the cynics, and jauntily titling it You’re A Cunt. A fake sour note for a beautiful waltz of a song, though he was probably wondering whether his sincerity is why Cardiff is seemingly so indifferent to a band attracting sell outs and strong reviews for both albums to date.
There’s a bit too much heavenly reverb on Lee’s vocals for Hopeless World, though it doesn’t dampen the quality of Cocksedge’s heavenly guitar chimes. The reverb is corrected for I’ll Be The Night; when Lee sings of a “fruitless search for saviours” and “All my life I’ve been searching for something” on All My Life, he’s well aware that this album is the light for those having a dark night of the soul.
On Bluebell Fields then Night Came, Cocksedge’s guitars are at their most Cocteaus-esque, while his FX evoke the jazz transcendence of Talk Talk’s Spirit Of Eden. Lee sings the line “Hand in a box of knives, it would come out as the air,” repeating “come out” mic-less. A heartstopper. He slugs from the bottle on Letter To Yesterday, passing the mic to the biggest Money fan in the audience for a spell, to whoops of delight, before singing “Oh, there’s blood in my veins” – a moment where all the humanity channels through this band, to this room, right now.
Money close on A Cocaine Christmas And An Alcoholic’s New Year, “bleary eyed and wasted,” leaving us to mingle with the revellers, reaching for their bittersweet heavens.
words CHRIS SEAL