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

On This Day 04/05/1994 Deacon Blue

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On this day, 4 May 1994, Scottish rock band Deacon Blue played Wales National Ice Rink in Cardiff on their In Your Town tour. The support was provided by The Dreaming.

Original advert for the rescheduled concert

The 1994 tour was originally scheduled as 'In Your Town - Part 2' for November 1993. Tickets went on sale in July, with extra dates added in September. It wasn't long after the extra dates went on sale that ticket holders were informed that the tour was postponed due to 'recording commitments.'

Review - South Wales Echo

The tour eventually took place after the release of the Greatest Hits album. Early in the Tour, the news leaked out that the band were splitting up, and two extra shows were added at the Glasgow Barrowlands.

Setlist

Will We Be Lovers

Raintown

Bound To Love

Fergus Sings The Blues

Your Swaying Arms

Real Gone Kid

A Brighter Star

Love & Regret

Love's Great Fears

Still In The Mood

When Will You...

Your Town

Only Tender Love

The Day That Jackie Jumped The Jail

Bethlehem's Gate

Wages Day

Dignity

Goin' Back

Chocolate Girl/I'll Never Fall In Love Again

Queen Of The New Year

Twist and Shout/Twist and Shout Your Town

On This Day 03/05/1991 Bleach

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On this day, 3 May 1991, indie rock band Bleach played Cardiff University.

From Ipswich, the band is usually considered part of the shoegazing genre. The band was formed in 1989 by brothers Neil and Nick Singleton (guitar and bass, respectively) together with drummer Steve Scott and vocalist Salli Carson.

Their first release was the Eclipse EP in 1990, followed in 1991 by the Snag EP. The tracks from these two EPs were collected on an album in 1991.

They recorded two Peel sessions, in 1990 and 1991, which were broadcast on BBC Radio One.[3] 1992 saw the release of the full-length album Killing Time, and the single "Shotgun", a surprising mixture of shoegazing and rap.

In 1993 the band released two separate mini-albums, Hard and Fast. The group disbanded shortly thereafter.