ADWAITH + COWZ – THE HOPE & RUIN, BRIGHTON 26.3.24
Thankfully, Brighton has arguably one of the very best music scenes in the country and quite possibly in Europe. This is wonderful for us as we get the opportunity to witness famous bands coming here as well as new outfits that are on the way up! However sometimes there are a clash of gigs which can become quite a quandary as to which artist to go to on certain night’s….tonight is one of those nights! I was seriously torn between whether to go to Brighton Dome and join the 1,860 folk who were there to see one of my favourite band’s, namely OMD, who have played here on eight previous occasions (I think I’ve been to them) all OR to head on up to The Hope & Ruin in Queens Road and join around 100 souls who were there in order to witness the debut Brighton concert by exciting post-punk Welsh singing band Adwaith who were opening up their UK tour here. A difficult decision had to be made! I had personally been encouraging the Carmarthen, (South West Wales) based Adwaith trio to come and play here for around nine months and they kept telling me that it’s on the cards and tonight WAS that night! It wouldn’t be right to let them down would it? Plus there’s the fact that OMD will amazingly be playing their first ever Eastbourne gig in their 46 year history tomorrow night at the Winter Gardens and so that’s sorted then…Adwaith tonight in Brighton and OMD tomorrow in Eastbourne.
And so I make my way in the rain to The Hope & Ruin. I purchase some liquid refreshment and head on upstairs and meet the Melting Vinyl promoters on the door. My hand stamped and I’m in and head across to have some banter with the local folk and before we know it the clock has moved forward to 9:30pm and it’s the turn of lead vocalist and guitarist Hollie Singer, bassist and backing vocalist Gwenllian Anthony and drummer Heledd Owen, who collectively are Adwaith, to bless us with their presence. They are joined by Rhys Grail on guitar and backing vocals.
But before I commence tonight’s gig report, let’s find out about Adwaith, which incidentally means ‘Reaction’ in English. Hollie and Gwenllian are close friends who have grown up together, having known each other since the tender age of three. Wind the clocks forward and after forming a band and performing in their hometown, they initially remained without a drummer, that is until they met Heledd Owen at their first performance. It was instant chemistry and so Adwaith came into being in 2015.
Adwaith are extremely proud of their heritage and sing in their native tongue, which has been creating a big reaction. They then found themselves signed to Libertino Records, where they released their debut album ‘Melyn’ (“yellow” in English) in 2018. Both ‘Melyn’ and its follow-up ‘Bato Mato’ (2022), which translates as “place and target” in Japanese, won the trio the Welsh Music Prize awarded for the best album from Wales, making Adwaith the first act to receive the award twice!
Adwaith have performed at a number of quality festivals and their name was beginning to push further afield, so much so that they were even invited across to the Netherlands and their live set was recorded by the people in the know KEXP and this is how I became aware of Adwaith. You can enjoy watching that performance HERE.
Behind the scenes the trio have been beavering away at new material and their forthcoming third album is in the pipeline. Adwaith have decided to gauge fans reaction to these new compositions by playing them live for the first time and so the big step of venturing on an intimate UK and Irish 14 date tour this month and next month was planned. Adwaith’s aim is to head on out in order to find brand new fans, as a majority of the cities and towns announced on the tour haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Hollie, Gwenllian and Heledd in action before, Brighton included, which is actually the opening date of the tour!
So back to The Hope & Ruin and someone has decided to make them feel at home by positioning the ‘Y Ddraig Goch’ aka ‘The Red Dragon’ flag of Wales across the front ground-level speakers. They arrive at 9:30pm to the taped sounds of ‘We Like To Party’ from the Vengaboys, sing along now…”We like to party; We like, we like to party……The Vengabus is coming; And everybody’s jumping”. The paaaarrrty has started……………..
They open up their 51 minute 14 tune set with the first of no less than 8 cuts from their 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album, this being the rockin’ ‘Cuddio’ which translates as ‘Hide’ in English. Hollie stands centre stage with her Fender guitar on the go, to her left (our right) is Fender bassist (and backing vocalist and water monitor) Gwenllian, who is sporting a fabulous pair of red glam rock boots that the Sweet would have been proud of, she has matching red eye makeup which is rather striking. Behind Hollie sits Heledd at the drumkit and Roland electronic drumpads, and completing the touring lineup (stage right, our left) is Rhys on Squier guitar and backing vocals. The quartet seem very relaxed and joyous to be playing for us.
Hollie informs us that the next number is about “being by the seaside” and it’s called ‘Lan y Môr’ which translates as ‘Seaside’. This track quickens its beat and is an enjoyable listen. After this they play ‘Sudd’ which we are told means ‘Juice’ and Hollie adds ‘Let’s get juicy!”, which is fine by me! This tune, the third of four consecutive numbers from ‘Bato Mato’ is arguably their most melodic of the evening. Next up, Hollie informs us that they are going to play ‘Wedi Blino’ which is a reflective number that means ‘Tired’ and is about anxiety and feeling tired. After this Hollie tells us that they are now going to play a brand new song which means ‘More’ and is from their forthcoming third album. I therefore assume that as tonight is the opening night of their tour, that this is quite possibly the first ever time that they have performed the track to a live audience, what an honour for us! The song is called ‘Mwy’ and for this Hollie puts down her guitar and instead utilises a not often used percussion instrument called a vibraslap. This has a different feel to their thus far released material, with wonderful excessive use of the cymbal and drum in a kinda Blondie ‘Heart Of Glass’ disco vibey way. We are then treated to yet another newbie in the form of ‘Purdan’, which means ‘Purgatory’, and this begins with a decent drum roll intro followed by some marvellous bass interplay courtesy of Gwenllian. They are testing the water with these new tunes and so I can convey that this track is an instant indie rockin classic and their best of the set so far. Their future certainly is looking bright!
Selection seven was the slower grungy sounding ‘Bywyd Syml’, which means ‘A Simple Life’. After this, their brief 49 second long intro sounding ‘Yn Fy Mhen’ song is listed on their setlist, but I think I must have missed it whilst taking notes, but I DID hear ‘Nid Aur’ (‘Not Gold’ in English) which is their most punky tune of the night with its meaty bass intro. After this corker, we are then treated to another new track, this is called ‘Miliwn’ meaning ‘A Million’. This is about a reminder to chill out and to stop worrying about things. It’s a gritty funky number in which Hollie plucks her guitar mid tune and the notes remind me of Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’. This track is really good and now I’m REALLY looking forward to their third long-player, which although referred to three times tonight, the title of which wasn’t divulged.
The fourth and final unreleased track was up next. This is called ‘Addo’ (‘Promise’ in English) and Hollie tells us that the recorded version on the forthcoming album will feature none other than Welsh singer-songwriter James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers. This solicited quite a number of oooh’s and wow’s from the crowd. Hollie tells us that it’s about “shitty relationships” and to me this sounded just like dream poppers The Sundays at their very best. This track is another corker and I kid you not that these new songs are even better than most of their already recorded output. This isn’t dissing their released material, but flagging up that they will be stepping up the ante with their next release. God I hope they come back and tour this forthcoming platter!
The more reflective ‘Fel i Fod’ from 2018’s ‘Melyn’ album is given a spin next. Hollie tells us that this means ‘How To Be’ and her vocal delivery on this was lovely. After this signalled the tune of the night for me, this being ‘ETO’ meaning ‘AGAIN’ in English. This brought the hairs on my arms to attention. Yep it gave me goosebumps and I then knew that purchases would now be the order of the day when vacating the venue. The punters loved this set ending track and hailed for more. We were rewarded with ‘Cwympo’ which Hollie tells us means ‘Falling’. This begins as a sedate number but grows into a rockin’ out tune. And that was our lot. Performance finished, cue outro tape of the Vengaboys ‘Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’.
We had to endeavour to fight our way out of the venue on the account of the punters queuing outside the door to make their t-shirt, vinyl and CD purchases. It was busy and even the promoter noted this. And I sign off this report with a message to Adwaith…“Please come back and play Brighton “ETO ETO ETO”.
Adwaith:
Hollie Singer – vocals, guitar, vibraslap
Gwenllian Anthony – bass, backing vocals
Heledd Owen – drums, electronic drum pads
Rhys Grail – guitar, backing vocals
Adwaith setlist:
‘Cuddio’ (‘Hide’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Lan y Môr’ (‘Seaside’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Sudd’ (‘Juice’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Wedi Blino’ (‘Tired’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Mwy’ (‘More’) (unreleased)
‘Purdan’ (‘Purgatory’) (unreleased)
‘Bywyd Syml’ (‘A Simple Life’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Yn Fy Mhen’ (‘In My Head’) (from 2018 ‘Melyn’ album)
‘Nid Aur’ (‘Not Gold’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
‘Miliwn’ (‘A Million’) (unreleased)
‘Addo’ (‘Promise’) (unreleased)
‘Fel i Fod’ (‘How To Be’) (from 2018 ‘Melyn’ album)
‘ETO’ (‘AGAIN’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
(encore)
‘Cwympo’ (‘Falling’) (from 2022 ‘Bato Mato’ album)
www.libertinorecords.com/adwaith
Support this evening came in the form of COWZ who I last managed to catch up with at ‘The Great Escape’ opening party on Brighton beach on 10th May last year. They are a bouncy lively young duo consisting of Saga and Tasha on joint vocals. Last time around they were accompanied by Joshy on drums and drumpads, but tonight it is just the duo plus a backing track for each song courtesy of the laptop on the floor. As per last time, the duo sang most of their set in unison, which was rather impressive. They commenced their brief 23 minute 7 song set from 8:30pm on the dot up until 8:53pm.
First up was their 2024 ‘Domination’ single with its catchy “la la la” chorus and the space travel line “Last tickets to Venus”, which reminded me of the classic ‘Automatic Lover’ by Dee D. Jackson. Their second selection, which can also be found on their ‘Domination’ single is ‘Most Fun In Ages’ which was an enjoyably bouncy number and had the vibe of a double Girli vocal delivery. Song three, ‘Rosalie’, we are informed was penned about “Rosalie Hale from ‘Twilight’ who pulls a lot of bitches!”. This tune was the slowest so far but still fell in the same field as Caity Baser for me. It’s their new tune that will be dropping on 11th April.
They continued with their ‘Bad News’ single which has just come out and whilst watching this track with their dance routines and joyful deliveries that I reckoned they would be a great support act for Lynks. Although this is technically a PA gig with them singing along to a backing track, artists can have some success with this format, namely Billy Nomates and Divine. They told us that they like to gossip, so the “gossip” on them is that if you are a fan of Girli or Caity Baser, then COWZ are for you! This banging tune isn’t actually called ‘Gossip’ though, its title is ‘Elephant’. Their bubble-gum pop earworms continued with the arrival of penultimate tune ‘La La Like You’ which is quite possibly the set highlight for me. Their feel good factor performance came to a close with ‘Psychos’. Suffice to say I had a smile on my face throughout their set and so would enjoy seeing them live again.
COWZ:
Saga – vocals
Tasha – vocals
COWZ setlist:
‘Domination’ (from 2024 ‘Domination’ single)
‘Most Fun In Ages’ (from 2024 ‘Domination’ single)
‘Rosalie’ (coming out 11th April)
‘Bad News’ (from 2024 ‘Bad News’ single)
‘Elephant’
‘La La Like You’
‘Psychos’
