[ originally published 08/12/2019 ]
THE WEDDING PRESENT
Tramshed, Cardiff - 2nd May 2019
Support: The Flatmates
Yeah yeah, another year, another Wedding Present gig. Nothing to see here? Well, maybe, maybe not, but think about this - and prepare yourselves... this was the tour to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the band's second album 'Bizarro'. Let that sink in a moment - THIRTY YEARS since the release of 'Bizarro'. If that depresses you, I suggest you go and give the record a spin at high volume. It'll make you feel better.
As if that isn't enough to make you feel old, the re-emergence of fellow C86-ers The Flatmates surely must evoke some distant memories in some of you. There was bound to have been some murmurs of "Now this is what you call music, not like the crap you hear today..." etc from certain members of the audience. To be fair, I never really got into the Flatmates - this was a time when I was in flux between being in school having crap music taste to going to college and discovering the Wedding Present, so I guess they flew under my radar first time around. They did only release five singles at the tail end of the 80s so that's understandable I suppose. But there were still plenty of knowing smiles in the crowd when Happy All The Time was aired.
The boy Gedge has tweaked the Wedding Present line-up yet again, but drummer Charles Layton is revealed as being the longest-serving member of the band bar Gedge himself, having been a constant fixture behind the kit for a whole decade now. However, I'm not sure how old the female members of this line-up would have been when 'Bizarro' came out...
Of course, all songs from that record were played in order, although they were interspersed with choice cuts from the Wedding Present's vast back catalogue - some obvious, but many not so (I mean, when was the last time they opened with two b-sides like Dan Dare and Nothing Comes Easy?). But that's the beauty of a Wedding Present gig nowadays, you always know what you're going to get, while never really knowing what you're going to get. While performance-wise this wasn't one of the best Weddoes shows I've been to, it was still a Wedding Present show, so hugely enjoyable.
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