On This Day 25/07/1996 Melissa Etheridge

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On this day. 25 July 1996, American singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge played Cardiff’s International Arena as support to Bryan Adams on her Your Little Secret World Tour.

Your Little Secret is the fifth album by singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, released in 1995. It was her most successful album on the Billboard 200, where it peaked at number six.

The album also contained three singles, "Your Little Secret", "I Want to Come Over", and "Nowhere to Go". "I Want to Come Over" went on to reach No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Nowhere to Go" peaked at No. 40.

As of 2010, the album has sold 1,348,000 copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Etheridge is known for music with a mixture of "confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals." She has been a gay and lesbian activist since her public coming out in January 1993.

She has received fifteen Grammy Award nominations throughout her career, winning two, in 1993 and 1995. In 2007, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up" from the film An Inconvenient Truth.

In September 2011, Etheridge received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tour Setlist

I Really Like You

If I Wanted To

I Want to Come Over

An Unusual Kiss

Come to My Window

Nowhere to Go

Silent Legacy

I Could Have Been You

Must Be Crazy for Me

I'm the Only One

Your Little Secret

Bring Me Some Water

Like the Way I Do

On This Day 24/07/1999 Simply Red

On this day, 24 July 1999, soul/pop band Simply Red played a sell-out gig at Cardiff Castle.

Band leader, singer and songwriter Mick Hucknall was the only original member left by the time Simply Red initially disbanded in 2010. They have released thirteen studio albums, from Picture Book (1985) through Time (2023), all of which have peaked within the top ten on the UK Albums Chart; with the albums A New Flame (1989), Stars (1991), Life (1995) and Blue (1998), along with their Greatest Hits (1996) album, reaching number one. Their 1991 album Stars is one of the best-selling albums in the United Kingdom.

1998 saw the release of the cover-heavy Blue, which produced four UK top 40 singles, including the top 10 hits "Say You Love Me" and "The Air That I Breathe". The follow-up album, 1999's Love and the Russian Winter, was a relative disappointment, spawning two minor hits that failed to break the top 10.

Simply Red were dropped from their label, East West Records in April 2000. Mick Hucknall subsequently set up the website Simplyred.com to handle releases of new recordings; the new label/website venture proved to be quite successful, many of the band's Simplyred.com releases selling and charting almost as well as their earlier recordings.

Setlist

Mellow My Mind

(Neil Young cover)

Never Never Love

Man Made the Gun

It's Only Love Doing Its Thing

(Barry White cover)

A New Flame

Thrill Me

For Your Babies

If You Don't Know Me by Now

(Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes cover)

So Beautiful

Thank You

Look Into Your Eyes

Night Nurse

(Gregory Isaacs cover)

Stars

Come to My Aid

I Won't Feel Bad

Infidelity

The Right Thing

Money's Too Tight (To Mention)

(The Valentine Brothers cover)

Holding Back the Years

(The Frantic Elevators cover)

Something Got Me Started

Fairground

On This Day 11/06/1992 Dire Straits

On this day, 11 June 1992, rock band Dire Straits played Cardiff Arms Park on their, On Every Street World Tour.
Support was provided by Was(Not Was) and Lyle Lovett.

The tour was supporting the band’s sixth and final album, On Every Street. It lasted from 23 August 1991 to 9 October 1992, and included 229 shows in 19 countries throughout Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The world tour sold 7.1 million tickets.

The tour lineup included Mark Knopfler (guitar, vocals), John Illsley (bass), Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Alan Clark (keyboards), Chris White (saxophone, flute), Paul Franklin (pedal steel guitar), Danny Cummings (percussion), Phil Palmer (guitar), and Chris Whitten (drums).

"The last tour was utter misery," said manager Ed Bicknell. "Whatever the zeitgeist was that we had been part of, it had passed." "Personal relationships were in trouble and it put a terrible strain on everybody, emotionally and physically," agreed Illsley. "We were changed by it."

Setlist
1. Calling Elvis
2. Walk of Life
3. Heavy Fuel
4. Romeo and Juliet
5. The Bug
6. Private Investigations
7. Sultans of Swing
8. Your Latest Trick
9. On Every Street
10. Two Young Lovers
11. Tunnel of Love
Encore #1
12. Money for Nothing
13. Brothers in Arms
14. Solid Rock
15. Wild Theme

On This Day 09/06/1995 Pusherman

On this day, 9 June 1995, indie rock band Pusherman played Cardiff University.

Formed in 1994, the band's lineup consisted of Andy Frank (vocals), Meredith "Yank" Reid (vocals, harmonica), Bo Ellery (bass), Martin Hoyland (guitar), Roger Swift (dorest wash board), Tony Antoniou (guitar) and Harry Harrison (drums).

Pusherman were signed to Oasis manager Marcus Russell's Ignition Records label, who released their first single entitled "First Time" in November 1995. Another single, "Whole", a 12" vinyl single, was voted single of the week by the NME, and though it was not available as a commercial release, it appeared on the NME 1996 cassette compilation Here Comes the Summer..., and Volume magazine's Volume Sixteen: Copulation Explosion! compilation.

The group's debut album, the Owen Morris–produced Floored, was released in September 1996. In November of that year, the song "Sold" from the album appeared on the CMJ New Music Monthly compilation, while another single "The Aim Indeed" was included in the UK indie compilation Indie Top 20 Volume 23.

Partly due to its members' heroin use, Pusherman disbanded in 1997. At the time of their breakup, they were being filmed by British filmmaker and music video director Mark Szaszy and photographer Corinne Day for a planned rockumentary". Afterwards singer Andy Frank moved to Los Angeles to form the band Jact along with Ted Hutt. Pusherman's other singer, Yank Reid, died in 2000.[4] Bass player Bo Ellery played on It's Jo and Danny's 2005 album Lank Haired Girl to Bearded Boy. Guitarist Martin Hoyland is a member of 9Bach.

Andy Frank died in 2008 at his home in Los Angeles, aged 42, and was buried in Portsmouth, England.

On This Day 27/05/1999 Kenny Rogers

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On this day, 27 May 1999, American country music legend Kenny Rogers, played Cardiff International Arena.

He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences, but also charted more than 120 hit singles across various genres, topping the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres - jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.

Review - South Wales Echo

Review - Cynon Valley Leader

In 1999, Rogers scored with the single "The Greatest", a song about life from a child's point of view (looked at through a baseball game). The song reached the top 40 of Billboard's Country Singles chart and was a Country Music Television number-one video. It was on Rogers's album She Rides Wild Horses the following year (itself a top-10 success). Also in 1999, Rogers produced a song, "We've Got It All", specifically for the series finale of the ABC show Home Improvement.

On This Day 19/05/1995 Chuck Berry

On this day, 19 May 1995, rock ‘n’ roll legend Chuck Berry played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

A pioneer of rock and roll, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high school life, and consumer culture, and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Review - South Wales Echo

Review - South Wales Argus

On This Day 14/05/1995 Klaus Wunderlich

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On this day, 14 May 1995, famous German easy listening organist Klaus Wunderlich played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

Wunderlich was born in Chemnitz. He played the Hammond organ model C3 then mid 60s changed to model Hammond H100. Wunderlich also tried new sounds and released an album exclusively played on Hohner instruments: model Planet T, Clavinet D6 and String Melody string synthesizer (also branded as Logan String Melody).

With the introduction of the first synthesizers, Wunderlich briefly used Moog synthesizer and produced three albums with the instrument. He later combined the sound of a Hammond organ model H 100 with a Lowrey Organ Model H25-3 and Wersi model W248S which was called the "New Pop Organ Sound". Wunderlich switched to Wersi organs permanently with the introduction of the Wersi Helios model in 1976, with which he created his own unique electronic sound.

During the course of time, the Wersi Helios was not sufficient to keep up with current technology and trends so Wunderlich started to use Wersi Beta Dx400. The Beta was then combined with the Wersi Helios to again create a unique sound. The 1980s saw Wunderlich purchase the Wersi Pianostar electronic piano which he used for rhythm guitar effects only.

In 1988, Wunderlich decided to part company with the Wersi Helios and Beta and purchased a new organ to replace both older models, the Wersi Spectra.

Wunderlich also used a small Moog synthesizer Minimoog to replicate the sound of the Bass guitar on his recordings as well as in the latter half of his career playing the drums and percussion on his recordings.

As a musician Wunderlich was open to different music styles and played classical, operetta, Broadway musical, as well as popular music. He sold more than 20 million records globally, and received 13 golden albums as well as one golden cassette.

Wunderlich died in Engen.

On This Day 10/05/1995 Tanita Tickaram

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On this day, 10 May 1995, British pop/folk singer-songwriter Tanita Tickaram played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

She had recently released her fifth studio album Lovers in the City. Jennifer Warnes provided backing vocals on four tracks on the album. One of these songs, "I Might Be Crying", was released as lead single.

A video for this single was filmed in Vietnam. The album reached No. 75 in the UK charts. "I Might Be Crying" was the first single to be released from the album, and peaked at number 64 in the UK.

"Wonderful Shadow" was the second single to be released and peaked at number 198 in the UK. "Yodelling Song" was the third and last single to be released and then only in some countries in continental Europe.

Review - South Wales Echo

Upon its release, John Harris of NME praised Lovers in the City as "shockingly decent", with Tikaram "coming out of it looking like someone who's worthy of sharing lunch with Tori, Bjork or Kate Bush". He commented on how Tikaram had "binned most of the forced intellectualism that made her sound like an eternal undergraduate" and "turned her straining, fractured baritone into something of an asset".

Setlist

You Make the Whole World Cry

Men & Women

Hot Stones

Out on the Town

Feeding the Witches

Happy Taxi

Heal You

Elephant

World Outside Your Window

Twist in My Sobriety

Good Tradition

Yodelling Song

Preyed Upon