Cardiff has slowly paved its way to being a top-billing location on the tour posters of some of the world’s biggest artists. Long gone are the days of reminding your favourite band that Wales exists, or urging your favourite singer to add a show at the CIA to their already limited UK tour (consisting of three London dates and maybe Manchester if you’re lucky). Somehow, over the last few years, our capital has made a name for itself within the music industry, firmly cementing our place as the land of song and becoming one of the most desirable stops for a musician to visit on their travels. But how has this change of heart suddenly put Wales back on the map, and is our beloved capital city the ideal host for names as big as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Kendrick Lamar?
Its unheard of – the industry’s top-streamed names, usually hailing from somewhere in the United States, actually have a clue where Wales is. Last year, Taylor Swift brought her Eras Tour here for one night only and sent fans into a frenzy by speaking a few words of broken Welsh, and blessing the crowd with a surprise song so coveted that it had the rest of the world raging, “where is Cardiff, anyway?” The year before, the city was littered in feather boas and pink cowboy hats as Harry Styles graced the country once again. Each time, overpriced hotels have sold out, streets have closed, and residents have been waiting upwards of four hours for a train following the final boom of the speakers in the Principality Stadium.
The rise in popularity of Cardiff is, by most of us, a welcome change. We used to pray for times like these, back when Birmingham was the closest option and the final resort was spending hundreds on a hotel and National Express to a random English city. Raging at Americans who cried out for another edition to their 50-date tour, and wondering what was so appealing to artists about London to make them so tempted to take up a four-night residency in Wembley Stadium rather than seizing the opportunity to explore the UK. However, now we have it, there’s an old saying ringing in all our heads – be careful what you wish for. I have been ever so tempted at times to tell musicians to take their bookings on our rugby pitches back and to stay far, far away from the chaos they’d undoubtedly ensue within the city.
I’ll put it this way – as much as we want it, we simply aren’t built for the mania of sold-out gigs at the Principality Stadium every summer. Up until last June, Cardiff didn’t even have its own designated bus station within the city centre, and yet we welcomed thousands upon thousands of people into the city with open arms and absolutely no preparation on how we’d get them out of it. Our government announces plans for a London-like Metro service, but as is the fashion for transportation proposals here (ahem, our bus station took over a decade to build), none of us are too positive about the success of said scheme. Instead, big names coming to Cardiff dooms us for another few nights of slow walking through the city after the encore, missing the last bus home and being denied entry to St Mary Street Maccies because the demand is too high.
I’m an avid concertgoer, so have had my fair share of experience in gigs across the city, having attended venues as small as The Globe and indeed as huge as the Principality itself. For those of us in Wales who don’t live in the capital city, Cardiff has long been our only option to see our favourite artists with even that being a trek from our small towns mispronounced by millions. I’ve always thought that Cardiff deserved a higher level of preparation to allow us to welcome such opportunities into our culture, yet with the closures of grassroots venues and erasure of the local music scene, it truly feels as though we are in way over our heads taking on so many bookings. Now, with the likes of DEPOT in the Castle and the new Blackweir music festival, I dread to think of the carnage that awaits our city this summer.
So – are we an ideal host after all? The answer is, I suppose, trickier than yes or no. Unfortunately, you won’t see Taylor Swift booking her next gig in Ceredigion or Caernarfon, so Cardiff will continue to be us Welshies’ only option for a live music experience in our own land. But even Cardiff has a way to go before it can keep up with the likes of London’s Hyde Park, O2 Arena and Finsbury Park. Until a gig in Sophia Gardens doesn’t guarantee a three-hour wait in Cardiff Central station, I’ll be steering clear of the centre on those ill-fated, jam-packed nights.
Words By Tegan Davies
Photo by Anthony Delanoix. No changes have been made to this image.