CKY – Walkabout, Cardiff - 8th July 2011 (Live Review)
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Written by Alice Pattillo
It is inevitable that Cardiff is doomed now that the Millennium Music Hall announced they were closing, well, gig-wise. Cardiff has really been dealt a soar deal this past year when it comes to gig venues and with both Music Hall and Barfly gone, there really is no mid-sized venue left, other than Clwb Ifor Bach, around the city centre.
Clutch and Gwar have been moved to, the oh so accessible, Pontypridd and CKY were thrown into... wait for it, no other than Walkabout – a venue not known for its rock friendly music choices. Walkabout as a venue could have potential but the acoustics are terrible, I honestly couldn’t make out some of the more widely known CKY songs until half way through, and I am an avid fan of the band. Also, who ever thought of putting a stage right behind of 3 large pillars? Unless you managed to squeeze to the front of the pit, you had to pick which two band members you wanted to look at for the entire set, standing right at the back made the view even worse as the large bridge construction above the stage helped skew your view even further.
I thankfully decided to skip the support, which from what I heard were not worth seeing anyway. Even though I turned up at gone 9.30pm, over two hours after the doors opened, CKY still hadn’t arrived on stage. This might have been great for me, but for those waiting two and a half hours for the band they’d paid to see, it wasn’t great. Of course, I am not blaming CKY for the unfortunate series of events – but really, the crowd were visibly frustrated by the time the bad came on stage at 10.00pm.
However, bearing all this in mind, I have to give it to the boys of CKY, they put on a good show. Blasting pop songs such as Rebecca Black’s 'Friday' between songs (for comic effect, although you did start to wonder...) and pulling an audience member up on stage who had previously covered majority of their discography on YouTube. All in all, the band made it worth £15, it was just a shame they were subject to such bad luck. For fans of Take That, Cardiff is brilliant but the city has taken a serious fall when it comes to rock and alternative music venues – no doubt it will be a while before we see the likes of CKY and Clutch back in Wales, and please, no more moving gigs to Walkabout? It just does not suffice.
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Clutch and Gwar have been moved to, the oh so accessible, Pontypridd and CKY were thrown into... wait for it, no other than Walkabout – a venue not known for its rock friendly music choices. Walkabout as a venue could have potential but the acoustics are terrible, I honestly couldn’t make out some of the more widely known CKY songs until half way through, and I am an avid fan of the band. Also, who ever thought of putting a stage right behind of 3 large pillars? Unless you managed to squeeze to the front of the pit, you had to pick which two band members you wanted to look at for the entire set, standing right at the back made the view even worse as the large bridge construction above the stage helped skew your view even further.
