My all-time favourite rock goddess, Kristin Hersh, was booked to play at Caerphilly Castle on Thursday July 22nd 1999. This was her first electric tour since her band, Throwing Muses, split and Caerphilly was the nearest venue to my home in North Wales. It also provided a good excuse to sample loco-haulage on the Cardiff-Rhymney line so Rowan came along too. We booked into a B&B on the edge of town (or so we thought) and planned a lengthy break at Newport on the way back to observe the freight traffic.
We had only 20 minutes to wait before boarding a Wales and West class 158 unit, the service from Manchester Piccadilly to Milford Haven which we would take as far as Cardiff. To our dismay all the table seats were occupied so we had to squeeze into airline seats. I find it impossible to get comfortable in these - even with my legs skewed my knees still press on the hard plastic of the seat in front and the view out of the window is poor. At the first opportunity we grabbed table seats.
Eventually the thing pulled into Cardiff Central and we marched briskly into town. We had an hour before the 16:46 loco-hauled service left to take the commuters back home to the Rhymney valley, just time for a refuelling stop at Pizza Express.
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The one good thing to have come out of the post-war neglect of Britain's railway stations is the preservation of original features. If the regeneration of Cardiff Central had happened in the sixties these wonderful Victorian tiles would surely have landed in a skip |
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A major farce then ensued. I'd searched for accommodation on the web but failed to find anywhere in the town centre so settled for one "just outside the town, but easiest to get a taxi when you arrive". We spent ages looking for the taxi rank, only to find it consisted of painted yellow lines just outside the station, then we had to wait about ten minutes before a taxi turned up. We were surprised when 37 423 Sir Murray Morrison 1873-1948 Pioneer of the British aluminium industry pulled up with the 17:05 from Cardiff - so the special hadn't taken the stock from the valleys after all! The taxi driver had never heard of our B&B, nor had anyone back in the taxi office, and after failing to find it I asked him if there was anywhere suitable in town. He knew of somewhere just by the station, took us there and waited until we were sure they had vacancies. So having wasted an hour, a taxi fare and a B&B deposit we were where we wanted to be - 5 minutes walk from the castle and the station!
After a much-needed shower I left Rowan and went to meet Mike, a fellow Musehead, whom I'd only ever previously spoken to electronically. This was the first time I'd succeeded in meeting an internet contact and our conversation over a couple of pints of Everard's Tiger in the Courthouse pub attracted the interest of a couple more visiting fans, from Somerset. Mike is a big fan of Blyth Power, a railfan band recently discussed on uk.railway - I really must check them out. He'd also had trouble finding central accommodation but had asked more searching questions than I and found a convenient B&B after several phone calls. Just as I was thinking what a well-organised bloke Mike was, he suddenly realised he'd left his ticket in the B&B and sprinted off down the road to retrieve it. At 7:30 we strolled down to the castle to be sure of a good position.
Caerphilly is a small undistinguished town dominated by an enormous 13th century
castle slap in the middle of town. My lens wasn't wide enough to record the
whole of it! It was a very warm summer evening and most of the early arrivals
were sunning themselves on the lawns. We headed straight for the banqueting
hall, the venue for the evening's event, and took a strategic position right
at the front, just to the right of centre-stage. This really is a magnificent
setting, heraldic shields mounted on mediaeval stone walls with a performance
from Kristin and the band only an hour or two away. But first we had to listen
to Bellatrix, the support band from Iceland, previously unknown to us - would
they be an ordeal or a revelation? They were excellent, this promised
to be a night to remember!
Kristin plays all the instruments on the new album, Sky Motel, but it would be a little tricky to accomplish that feat on tour, so she's assembled a band comprising Muses co-founder David Narcizo (drums, percussion), Robert Rust (keyboards) and former Belly bass guitarist Tom Gorman. The set was mainly drawn from the new album but included a few Muses favourites and electric versions of solo acoustic songs - magnificent, I can hardly wait 'til the next tour in October. It seemed a short set but my watch told me it had lasted for an hour and twenty minutes. We had a quick chat with Billy, Kristin's husband and manager, while he was helping pack up the kit then back to our B&Bs ready for an early start to catch the loco-hauled commuter services. Cathedral Heat from Sky Motel was lodged in my brain and prevented a good night's sleep!