WALES GOES POP! – DAY ONE
The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff, Fri 18 Apr
The inaugural Wales Goes Pop! weekender last year was a bold move – the appeal of indiepop, in its twee and resolutely non-charting form, doesn’t add up to a guaranteed money-spinner. Pleasingly, it proved enough of a success for Liz Hunt, its founder, to bring it back for 2014, taking advantage of the long Easter weekend. Attendees could be watching bands in The Gate’s roomy main hall from early afternoon, if they desired.
Buzz arrives later in the evening to catch Night Flowers, a London-based quintet. Often working with the time-honoured trappings of classic indie gubbins, guitars variously jangling and feeding back like any number of acts on record labels like Slumberland, they also have a song (Embers) which sounds uncannily like Surrender by Cheap Trick, and a predilection for more expansive, almost classic rock manoeuvres.
September Girls, who follow, are five Irish women in their early twenties, which probably makes them the youngest people in the venue who weren’t brought here by their parents. As they embark on their first song of girl group harmonies and whistling-kettle guitars, a drunk man puts his arm round us and proclaims their greatness. “Mind you,” he adds, pointing at the stage, “who cares if they sound shit?” (Later, he will jump off said stage and crash to the floor uncaught.) Think we get what he’s saying, but September Girls don’t sound shit. Their music is very carefully stylised, and – like Cursing The Sea, their recent debut album – partly functions as a substitute for NYC’s now defunct Vivian Girls, but they have several songs which are very good on their own terms. Despite wearing universally serious expressions early on in their set, the band seem to enjoy themselves more as they push on with their Jesus & Mary Chain/Bangles/Ramones-recalling sweet-centred racket.
Also in their early twenties, albeit in a different way, Helen Love (the group) formed in Swansea circa 1992. However, their live performances are extremely rare, largely on account of Helen Love (the person) suffering from stagefright. A headline set last year at Indietracks, a Midlands festival in a similar vein to WGP!, paved the way for this equivalent slot, giving scores of tipsy folks an excuse to jump up and down and twat balloons around to HL’s hyperactive synthesised crypto-punk.
Comprising cheap-sounding guitar, a cheaper-sounding sequencer played by a man in a KLF shirt, and Helen’s spoke-sung vocals (delivered from behind sunglasses, a la her musical hero Joey Ramone), by most understood measures of live performance Helen Love are not terribly good at it. Apart, that is, from the one where everyone present has a terrific time and leaves elated. Opening with Happy Hardcore, named after the subgenre whose pneumatic foolishness influences their backing tracks, the set includes Girl About Town, Dance On, Joey Ramoney and Punkboy (some of which is sung by the crowd); late 90s single Does Your Heart Go Boom finishes the set, and features copious glitter and a stage invasion.
Anyone wandering in, unaware of the band’s existence, would probably be completely bemused by the entire spectacle. This only serves to increase the singular cult appeal of Helen Love’s music and ethos, summed up in the title of one of their albums, It’s My Club And I’ll Play What I Want To.
words NOEL GARDNER
