Heart of a Punk - Soul of a Rasta

28th February 2009
The Killers/Louis XIV Cardiff Indoor Arena, Cardiff.

I have been literally forced to listen to The Killers "Day and Age" album day after day for several months now, its clarity muffled only by my son's tightly closed bedroom door. So it wasn't a great surprise to me when I received a cordial invite to accompany him (drive him) out west to the spray tan capital of the free world - Cardiff - to see The Killers play at the Cardiff Indoor Arena.

The CIA? Sorry I haven't got a clue, The Millennium Stadium ok, St David's Hall yes, The Point likewise (well I did), but the CIA nope not got a clue. So unsure of exactly where the CIA sits in the constantly reshaping city of Cardiff, research was needed. I typed "CIA Killers" into google and pressed return. Immediately my screen started flickering, the computer fan turned on, three virus threat warnings popped up, my mobile phone started chirping, the land line began ringing, and my door bell began bonging. Frozen like a headless chicken with a rabbit's body I was instantly caught by mysteronesque searchlights beaming through the skylight, the rings of light were emanating from a helicopter hovering above the roof of my house. In a blind panic I bounced between banister and wall down the stairs, threw open the front door, and ran pell-mell into the open arms of two Watchtower brandishing Jehovah Witnesses. They proceeded to enter my house, calm me down, sit me down and then gave me a strange tasting drink from a tiny leather covered vacuum flask. Smoke swirled around my living room. The smoke was my friend. The smoke was spun by a million tiny spiders who just wanted me to answers a few simple questions. The spiders said that if I answered their questions the smoke and spiders would then leave me alone. I can't remember what the questions were now, I can't remember my answers, but after some time the spiders began to eat the smoke, then the spiders ate themselves, and finally I was left alone.
Thinking back though, those Jehovah Witnesses didn't look like Jehovah Witnesses; they looked a bit like the two gentlemen below.

After this incident I decided we'd better just get ourselves down to Cardiff and ask for directions. But then I remembered the story about a Welsh Labour politician standing as a candidate in a Cardiff by-election. To assist with his campaign he asked a colleague, an English MP and cabinet big hitter, to come down to the constituency to help him canvas support. The English MP agreed to assist and with his PA driving, set out from London to Cardiff. Inconceivably with the Welsh capital almost in sight the Westminster duo took a wrong turning and finally ended up totally lost on B road somewhere south of Merthyr Tydfil. With darkness descending and without a map, the English MP decided that on seeing the next person they should stop the car and ask for directions. After a mile or so they came across a farmer making firm a gate. They drew up along side the man, the MP lowered his window, and with cheery bravado asked "Excuse me my good fellow, can you tell where I am?" "Yes" replied the Welsh farmer pausing to take the stranger in, "You're in your car".

Thinking it over I decided to just point the car in the general direction of Cardiff and hope for the best, so off we headed over the Brecon Beacons listening to "Brecon Beacons" by Supergrass whilst intermittently dodging sheep. There is a curious matter I've never been able to reconcile whenever I've visited Cardiff in the past. About 35 miles from Cardiff the road signs read "Cardiff 35 miles", "Caerdydd 35 miles". Then about 10 miles from Cardiff the signs read: "Cardiff 10 miles", "Caerdydd 10 miles", but even though I've been to Cardiff and the environs on many, many occasions, I've never been able to find this place so near to Cardiff called Caerdydd - bizarre!

Anyway, once in the truly remarkable city of Cardiff we began to dissolve into its midst, sticking out like two sore thumb émigrés, moving upon Great Western fixed linear rails, stopping momentarily at our favourite destinations. First Porthcawl (sorry first port of call) Spillers Records. Compared to the hermetically sealed, temperature regulated, vacuum packed, dry frozen, dust free homogenised, institutionalised, disinfected, sterile museum that once was Piccadilly Records in Manchester, Spillers Records has remained whole heartedly a records shop: loud, filthy, smelly, dark, cramped, dysfunctional and wonderful! No antiseptic mouthwash approach to flogging records here. They flog their wares out of 7" sized wooden fixtures even though the wares they're selling are cd sized, yeah! Spillers Records: just as God intended a records shop to be. www.spillersrecords.co.uk

Next destination the famous Cranes music store, drum kits were drummed, music books were fingered, plectrums and reeds were bought, melodicas were blown and maracas were marac'd by the boy, as I copped a bit of shut eye on a drum stool in a darkened corner. A musical emporia, emporie, emporium par excellent!
www.cranesmusicstore.com

But less of this frivolity we need to find the venue.
The Cardiff CIA is an old build sports arena that lacks any kind of sense in its design with regard to getting folk in and out of its portals, relying on small double doors at the top of stairs to expel seven thousand odd pissed punters is not great. But on the plus side the arena itself is less corporate and not as ridiculously vast as most of the newish English city arenas. It was nice to find that instead of the place being awash with row upon row of horrible over priced "big brand" bland food and drink kiosks, there was a guy in the CIA foyer (who had a café just round the corner) knocking out fresh toasted panini's, and that drinks rather than being emitted from a hose were being sold bottled and chilled.


Louis XIV, the support, were a fine suited and booted all American ye ha rootie tootie dual vocalist foursome. It may be a generalisation but most American support bands who travel over the muddy pool to the cradle of musical civilisation seem to be technically more proficient than our home grow upstarts. It's like a football analogy thing, Dutch players, perfect first touch and close control; technically superior to our boys, but frankly when it comes to the game they couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo. Well live Louis XIV were technically proficient, but they didn't really hit me. But what do I know: find out for yourself www.myspace.com/louisxiv. I've just been there and listened to "Thief in the Choir" and if you like "The Cars" & "The Killers" and have a high schmaltz tolerance threshold perhaps you'll love it.

Round where my lad and I were huddled Louis XIV were the cause of heated debated. They had a wonderfully large back drop hung behind them adorned with their name and art work. On seeing and reading this, the two gentlemen to my left began to argue. One of them was unquestionably certain, even though his cerebral cortex was by this time drenched in alcohol, that the band was called Louis 14. Whereas his bestist in the westist friend was unassailably positive that, even though his cranial cavity was also flooded with alcohol, the band was in fact Louis 16. Bloody Roman numerals! I never realised they could be so divisive! Well a tenner was wagered on the outcome, and when Louis XIV finally announced themselves verbally as Louis 14 the victor, triumphant at his god like intellect magnanimously said he'd settle for a pint rather than a tenner, which would later no doubt equate pretty much to the same thing in some over priced Cardiff Club. Anyway peace between these two Derby buddies was restored. The whole incident amused my eleven year old son almost to the point of wetting himself. "Louis Quatorze" he kept saying under his breath, "The Sun King". But I don't think adding French to the roman numerals would not have helped them any. I passed the time as Louis XIV played trying to remember the non English lyrics from "The Beatles" "Sun King". Now that John Lennon he may not have been too hot on Roman numerals (who knows whether he was or not?) but like all great Englishmen he had a fine command of foreign languages

Quando para mucho mia amore de felice corazon
Mundo paparazzi mi amore chica ferdi parasol
Questo obrigado tanta mucho que canite carousel

Now as I said a long time ago I've been listening to my son's copy of "Day and Age" by The Killers for several months and overall it hits me in the same way "The Hunter" album by Blondie did in '82. The Killers on "Day and Age" like Blondie on "The Hunter", seem to be unnecessarily straining for a change of direction that once achieved doesn't all together suit. But my son wholeheartedly disagrees with me, so I must do what I'm told to do "shut up and enjoy The Killers".

So what did we get for our KASH? Well first off we got the first single release from Day & Age "Human". The chorus of "Human" caused a certain amount of division when it was released. Did he say dancer? No, he said denser? Are you sure, 'cause it sounds like dancer to me pal. But now at the CIA no one gives a flying fig what the lyrics are, we're simply waiting for the first chorus to end, The Killers take off, and the bouncing to begin in earnest.

First track done and dusted The Killers set about majestically breezing through material almost equally selected from each of their four albums. From Day & Age they played the synth laden "Losing Touch", which for me is the closest The Killers could possibly get to The Cars without doing a cover or being sued for plagiarism. We got the jaunty rap rapture rattlesnakes and romance of "Joyride" and the quick fuse to fireworks of "Spaceman" - which was one of their best on the night and necessitated once again sporadic bursts of vertical oscillation.

So to the "Sawdust" material and "Shadowplay", I can now say I've seen Joy Division's "Shadowplay" performed live. OK in the hands of The Killers it has been reinvented and revamped to sound more like New Order than Joy Division, but either way its no longer a dead thing on a piece of plastic its resplendent, reborn and lives once more.

And from the "Hot Fuss" debut The Killers hammered out once again for our delectation "Jenny was a Friend of Mine", the obligatory "Mr Brightside", "Smile Like you Mean it", "Somebody Told Me" and "All These Things That I have Done" each once in turn like an unrelenting old friend - communal vocalisation was obligatory.

By half time I must confess my aged frame was in need of a moment to recover, a moment presented itself as Brandon and the boys slowed things down to play the sweet plaintive ditty "I Can't Stay" off the current LP. Flowers's vocals shimmered along to the naïve melody; a lilting refrain was teased out of a distant steel drum (tings got mellow). I quickly called on the coach, he gave me a light dusting over with his magic sponge (God that water was cold on my testicles, but it was good) then he applied a light strapping to both my knees, smiled at me warmly his nose touching mine and finally whispered in my ear reassuringly "Come on Ed only another 45 minutes or so to go, you can do it".

I was going to be ok, the smoke cleared, we were off again this time "Sam's Town", first the poptastic "Bones", and then to the zenith of the evening "Sam's Town" itself, the Abbey Road version to start with Brandon solo and tinkling the ivories, gradually with the band lending and building it into the full fledged rip roaring album version to close.

For those who like to know these things Brandon Flowers was on the night as gorgeous as always, he was gorgeous with naked eye and he was gorgeous on the large screens, perhaps he was more gorgeous on the large screen than he was with the naked eye or perhaps… - anyway you get the idea! With all this gorgeousness of his it does seem a pity that they haven't put this boy in the movies yet. Perhaps his movie career could start with a biopic that charts the meteoric rise of the Vegas four. Of course if a biopic was scheduled I would be forced to put myself forward as the perfect candidate to play Brandon Flowers senior. I know that casting and continuity would not be happy, constantly harping on, saying "that guy playing Brandon's father, he looks too young, the audience is going to get confused, they're going to think it's Brandon's twin brother not his father", still the role would be mine because when I look at Brandon Flowers its like looking in a mirror, the likeness is deafening.

And so to the blistering finale of "When You Were Young" which concluded in a hail storm of confetti, a deal of audience noise and the strains of "Moon River" to send us out into the Cardiff night.

What did we learn from the night? Well unlike Coldplay (who I was forced to see at an arena at the back end of last year) The Killers didn't put on a "show", there was nothing like the Coldplay three ring circus (playing on the main stage, playing acoustic in the crowd and playing electronic on a small stage) no gimmicks were required, instead The Killers were light on razzmatazz and big on performing as a tight coherent live band. Thank the Lord for that!

The next day dawned, St David's Day! We walked across the hotel car park nipped a couple narcissi's off mid stem and shoved them on our lapels in an attempt to cast aside our émigré personas and mingle with the Welsh massive. Personally I've always been easy with the Welsh hating the English, like a Milwall fan I know they hate me but I don't care. Historically the English may have starved an entire Irish nation, and mercilessly butchered and cleared every Scotsman off his ancestral turf. For those heinous misdemeanours I know when I go to Scotland or either parts of Ireland I must expect to have the piss remorselessly ripped out of me, and accept a load of good natured doing down of the damned English.
But in Wales historically the crimes of the English have been much worse than simple stealing, killing and starving. They've stopped the Welsh from speaking Welsh for one, ohhh. And for two they've had the bloody cheek to keep taking their rainy summer holidays in Wales. So the punishment for being Englishman in Wales must be greater, more violent and most importantly for all eternity. We must return soon, until then keep a welcome in the hillside Wales.

The Big K