What's Welsh For Quirkilicious

A nice fun Welsh themed evening at The Queen Elizabeth Hall last week, with films and DJ's and all sorts. The main event was the Super Furry's Gruff Rhys plugging his new album Candylion. First support were 9 Bach, a three piece consisting of geetar, harp (quite a modest one though, not Newsome sized) and Xylophone/Harmonium. All their songs were in Welsh and were nice enough, if not over memorable. Next up were The Voice Of The Seven Woods, a duo from up north somewhere who did mainly acoustic guitar led instrumentals. The vocals were nothing special, and the restrictions imposed by only an acounstic guitar and drums on all of the songs made the set very tonally limited.

Gruff had gone to town on the set, with giant Candylion & Friends cut-outs, a huge TV screen, behind which was a desk full of whistles, bells and toy gizmo's which he used, along with the ubiquitous loop pedal (also used extensively by the & Woods) to build up his nicely layered tunes. He was joined occasionally by the singer from 9 Bach, and for the first song 'Candylion' and the epic closer 'Skylon' by a full band. 'Skylon' was acted out in two aircraft seats, being the story of troubled flight by a bomb disposal expert. Gruff is too quirky to be anything than light frothy fun, but this he acheived with considerable Celtic aplomb.

The programme featured a cut out and keep Candylion model, which through the wonders of the worldly web you can now make for yourselves: