On This Day 18/8/1993 Stereo MC’s

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On this day, 18 August 1993, hip hop and electronic dance band Stereo MC’s played Cardiff Arms Park supporting U2 on their Zoo TV tour.

Formed in Clapham, London, England, in 1985, they had an international top 20 hit with their single "Connected" and a UK top 20 hit with "Step It Up". After releasing eight albums for Island Records, K7, Graffiti Recordings, and Pias, they formed the label Connected with the band Terranova to release their own material and that of other artists within the house/techno/electronic genre.

Their live band included singers Andrea Bedassie and Verona Davis, and they were one of the few hip hop outfits to play at rock music festivals at the time.[5] 1992's mainstream breakthrough Connected, a number 2 success in the UK Albums Chart, contained the hit singles "Connected", "Step It Up", "Creation", and "Ground Level", and won them 1994 Brit Awards for Best Group and Best Album. Hallam and Birch then created the music-publishing firm Spirit Songs, which signed Finley Quaye.

However, the follow-up to Connected did not appear for almost a decade. Further remix duties for Madonna ("Frozen"), Tricky ("Makes Me Wanna Die" Weekend Mix), and the Jungle Brothers ("Jungle Brother") in 1998 kept the Stereo MCs' name in the limelight.[5] Madonna went on to use the "Frozen" remix on her 2001 Drowned World Tour.

On this Day 18/08/1993 U2

On this day, 18 August 1993, Irish rock band U2 played Cardiff Arms Park as part of their Zoo TV tour.

Support for the day was provided by Utah Saints and Stereo MCs.

Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 to 1993. It was intended to mirror the group's new musical direction on Achtung Baby.

In contrast to U2's austere stage setups from previous tours, the Zoo TV Tour was an elaborately staged multimedia spectacle, satirising television and media oversaturation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience.

To escape their reputation for being earnest and overly serious, U2 embraced a more lighthearted and self-deprecating image on tour. Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were central to the group's 1990s reinvention.

The tour's concept was inspired by disparate television programming, coverage of the Gulf War, the desensitising effect of mass media, and "morning zoo" radio shows.

The stages featured dozens of large video screens that showed visual effects, video clips, and flashing text phrases, along with a lighting system partially made of Trabant automobiles.

The shows incorporated channel surfing, prank calls, video confessionals, a belly dancer, and live satellite transmissions with war-torn Sarajevo.

On stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including the leather-clad egomaniac "The Fly", the greedy televangelist "Mirror Ball Man", and the devilish "MacPhisto".

In contrast to other U2 tours, each of the Zoo TV shows opened with six to eight consecutive new songs before older material was played.

Setlist:

Zoo Station

The Fly

Even Better Than The Real Thing

Mysterious Ways

One / Hear Us Coming (snippet) / Unchained Melody (snippet)

Until the End of the World

New Year's Day

Numb

Babyface

Angel of Harlem

Dancing Queen

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Satellite Of Love

Bad / Irish Heartbeat (snippet) / The First Time (snippet)

Bullet the Blue Sky

Running To Stand Still

Where the Streets Have No Name

Pride (In the Name of Love)

encore(s):

Desire / You Make Me Feel So Young (snippet) / Green Green Grass Of Home (snippet)

I Just Called To Say I Love You (snippet) / Ultraviolet (Light My Way) / My Way (snippet)

With or Without You / Shine Like Stars (snippet)

Love Is Blindness

Can't Help Falling In Love

ARCHIVE REVIEW
by Steve Duffy, South Wales Echo

The band too have moved on, as they must. CNN and NBC were the perfect backing for the PVC of Bono as band started with a huge chunk from their previous album Achtung Baby - techno-rock gloss of Even Better Than The Real Thing, The Fly (and with exotic dancer) Mysterious Ways, three tracks which stand with Us2 best.

Normal service was quickly resumed with New Year’s Day, who struck the crowd dumb with his new solo, effort, Numb.

On Babyface, Bono invites a girl up - these days she gets a camcorder rather than a kiss, and promptly zooms in on his crotch.

the band at last leave the technology behind to take to a small stage for semi-acoustic segment - a memorable Angel Of Harlem, an improbably good version of Abba’s Dancing Queen, the excellent Stay (Faraway So Close) from Zooropa and Satellite of Love (with fuzzy image of Lou Reed bearing down).

The crowd are predictably welcoming for the U2 - the anthems’ segment.

The old stadium rock atmosphere is recreated for Bad, although Bullet The Blue Sky is, with out irony, turned into a horrid Nuremberg style rally, to a backdrop of burning crosses turning into swastikas, Bono ending with clenched salute declaring, "We must not let this happen again." Please don’t.

They finish with Where The Streets Have No Name and Pride, and we’re left with a relaxation video of tropical fish.

Bono returns for the encore as MacPhisto - dressed in gold glitter suit, platform shoes, red devil horns and lip gloss for Desire.

Then it’s on the mobile phone to Lady Thatcher.

the band may have matured musically, but not politically - a naive call to the Commons in the summer recess to sing I Just Called To Say I Love You to The Lady (wrong number too), to be told by a telephonist to write in.

We should all write "Capitalism Suck" 100 times on our £10 tour programmes and send them to the band.

It ends wonderfully quietly - Love Is Blindness and a quick impression of Elvis before a simple sign off with I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.

"Elvis Is Still In The Stadium," were his last words.

Somehow Bono himself never really was.

On This Day 19/07/1992 Bryan Adams

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On this day 19 July 1992, Canadian rocker Bryan Adams played Cardiff Arms Park on his Waking Up The World Tour.

Support was provided by Extreme, Squeeze and Little Angels

Review - South Wales Echo

The Canadian finished his British tour last night in fine style, and the party mood out front soon spread to the band.

It's taken 10 years of hard slog to reach

Robin Hood's slings and arrows have brought outrageous fortune for Adams.

And he teased the crowd before half way through launching into the inevitable (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. There was a humourous banter with the band and whether or not guitarist Keith Scott's grandmother is really Welsh, he had plenty of home support.

Adams even demanded a rugby song from the 31,500 crowd, and from his reaction, don't be surprised if there's a cover version of Bread Of Heaven on the next album.

He took the band briefly to a second stage out on the pitch, with a live favourite - Eddie Cochran's C'Mon Everybody, before picking half a dozen fans from the crowd to join him for She's Only Happy When She's Dancing.

Then it was back to the main stage to finish with the Adams standard - Summer Of '69 - and Straight From The Heart If there's a certain formula, few carry it off in such a no-frills style.

Setlist

House Arrest

Kids Wanna Rock

Cuts Like a Knife

Somebody

(Everything I Do) I Do It for You

Run to You

When Night Falls

Can't Stop This Thing We Started

It's Only Love

There Will Never Be Another Tonight

B-Stage

C'mon Everybody

(Eddie Cochran cover)

She's Only Happy When She's Dancin'

Encore:

Summer of '69

Straight From the Heart

On This Day 05/08/1989 Simple Minds

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On this day, 5 August 1989, Scottish rockers Simple Minds played Cardiff Arms Park on their Street Fighting Years tour. Support was provided by Texas, Welsh band The Darling Buds and The Silencers.

Street Fighting Years Tour

"After we'd finished the record we knew what would work on stage: by the time we did the Street Fighting Years tour all those songs fitted beautifully in to that set. We were definitely down the Celtic road – it was "this is who we are and we’re not ashamed of it." We'd avoided that before."

The rehearsals took place at The Point, Dublin, Ireland for three weeks before the tour. This included all the prep work for the equipment and culminated with full dress rehearsals. (The second day of the full rehearsals was on the 9th May 1989). The songs worked on were: Street Fighting Years, Wall Of Love, Mandela Day, This Is Your Land, Soul Crying Out, Waterfront, Ghostdancing, Book Of Brilliant Things, Don't You (Forget About Me), Gaelic Melody, Take A Step Back, Oh Jungleland, Big Sleep, Kick It In, Let It All Come Down, Belfast Child, Sanctify Yourself, Alive And Kicking, East At Easter, Sun City and Biko.

The rehearsals were recorded and can be recognised by the lack of audience reaction before and after the songs. (Lone roadies and support staff can be heard clapping and cheering after several tracks).

The "live" version of Big Sleep, which appeared on the Kick It In single, was taken from these rehearsal sessions.

"We played things like Celtic songs with a fiddle break in the middle and we were giving everything a shot. We opened our Wembley show with the title track of Street Fighting Years, which doesn't even really have any drums in it! It was a bit mad, but we had to play stadiums on our terms. If we were going into that environment, we had to do what we wanted." - Charlie, Classic Pop Magazine, March 2020

Review - South Wales Echo

Simple Minds are a long way from becoming an endangered species - 50,000 adoring fans at the National Ground on Saturday night proved that.

Having said that, they have other similarities to the blue whales they showed on the video screens during an ecologically-conscious interlude halfway into the set. Impressive and powerful, even magnificent but, it has to be said, a little bit dull really.

On the night Kerr and Co just couldn't be faulted, managing to communicate a genuine warmth and enjoyment.

They open opened up in a relatively low-key manner but things improved with a stunning Great Wall Of Love, Charlie Burchill's beautifully pure lead guitar and Mel Graynor's awesome drums powering the song along. The celebratory Mandela Day followed, and already Jim Kerr had the crowd where he wanted them - nestling comfortably in his waistcoat pocket.

Kick It In, Ghostdancing, The Book Of Brilliant Things - they were all tight, sharp, and powerful, but were songs all dressed up with no place to go. The band encored with a ferocious version of Steve Van Zandt's rousting Sun City (I Ain't Gonna Play), and Peter Gabriel's worthy but rather dull Biko. A triumphant Alive and Kicking closed the show with what looked like the entire crowd waving and singing. Simple Minds left the stage very much alive and kicking.

Concert Preview and Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qd4LQMPzV8

Setlist

Theme for Great Cities

(intro)

When Spirits Rise

(intro)

Street Fighting Years

Wall of Love

Mandela Day

This Is Your Land

Soul Crying Out

Waterfront

Ghost Dancing

Book of Brilliant Things / Five to One

(The Doors cover)

Don't You (Forget About Me)

Gaelic Melody

Once Upon a Time

Oh Jungleland

Big Sleep

Kick it In

Let It All Come Down

Belfast Child

Sun City

(Artists United Against Apartheid cover)

Biko

(Peter Gabriel cover)

Sanctify Yourself

East at Easter

Alive and Kicking

Theme for Great Cities

(outro)

On This Day 21/06/1987 David Bowie

Image - Media Wales

On this day, 21 June 1987, rock legend David Bowie played Cardiff Arms Park on his Glass Spider tour.

Support was provided by Big Country and The Screaming Blue Messiahs.

David Bowie embarked on the The Glass Spider Tour in support of the album Never Let Me Down. The concert tour was the most ambitious by David Bowie surpassing the previous Serious Moonlight Tour in terms of audience figures and number of performances.

It has been estimated by the conclusion of the tour a total of three million people had attended beating his previous record set on the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour.

Image - Media Wales

Setlist

Purple Haze

(The Jimi Hendrix Experience song)

Up the Hill Backwards

Glass Spider

Up the Hill Backwards

(Reprise)

Day-In Day-Out

Bang Bang

(Iggy Pop cover)

Absolute Beginners

Loving the Alien

China Girl

(Iggy Pop cover)

Fashion

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

All the Madmen

Never Let Me Down

Big Brother

Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family

'87 and Cry

"Heroes"

Time Will Crawl

Beat of Your Drum

Sons of the Silent Age

Dancing With the Big Boys

Zeroes

Let's Dance

Fame

The review
It was simply the biggest and best rock concert Wales has seen. A total of 50,000 people paid £750,000 to see a legend and it was worth every penny.

David Bowie, 40, fit and fantastic, sent the National Stadium in Cardiff wild with excitement with a set of hits, ancient and modern.
A taste of everything from Heroes from 1977 to Zeroes from his latest album, Never Let Me Down, echoed around a stadium more used to the hymns and arias of the rugby multitudes and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The goal posts at the East Terrace end were replaced with a vast stage enveloped by a giant spider which incorporated a series of looping and stretching antennae.
On either side masking the whole of the daunting 260- speaker cabinet sound system were huge scaffolding towers painted gold.
Suddenly the strains of the Hendrix classic Purple Haze, played incongruously on strings, broke the silence of expectation which had hushed the stadium.
Enter guitarist Carlos Alomar to evoke the huge spider to free its brood and a host of spider -dancers descend followed by the main man himself suspended in a silver throne, speaking on a telephone.
Clad in blood red Teddy-boy style suit he threw himself into new material – Glass Spider , Day In – Day Out – surrounded and almost submerged by superb dancers and video crew.
For Bang Bang, Bowie was joined by a Latin dancer, whose seemingly endless leg draped over his shoulder.
And all the while the spiders – now not of Mars – wound around the web of scaffolding, followed by the roving video cameras, which relayed the action to two giant screens either side of the stage.

Image - Media Wales

Tour band 1987 – The Glass Spider Tour

• David Bowie – vocals, guitar

• Peter Frampton – guitar, vocals

• Carlos Alomar – guitar, backing vocals, music director

• Carmine Rojas – bass guitar

• Alan Childs – drums

• Erdal Kızılçay – keyboards, trumpet, congas, violin, backing vocals

• Richard Cottle – keyboards, saxophone, tambourine, backing vocals

Tour dancers

• Melissa Hurley

• Constance Marie

• Spazz Attack (Craig Allen Rothwell)

• Viktor Manoel

• Stephen Nichols

• Toni Basil (choreography)

On this day 18/08/1993 U2

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 18 August 1993, Irish rock giants U2 played Cardiff’s Arms Park as part of their Zoo TV Tour. Support for the day was provided by Utah Saints and Stereo MCs.

Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 to 1993. It was intended to mirror the group's new musical direction on Achtung Baby.

In contrast to U2's austere stage setups from previous tours, the Zoo TV Tour was an elaborately staged multimedia spectacle, satirising television and media oversaturation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in its audience.

To escape their reputation for being earnest and overly serious, U2 embraced a more lighthearted and self-deprecating image on tour. Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were central to the group's 1990s reinvention.

The tour's concept was inspired by disparate television programming, coverage of the Gulf War, the desensitising effect of mass media, and "morning zoo" radio shows.

The stages featured dozens of large video screens that showed visual effects, video clips, and flashing text phrases, along with a lighting system partially made of Trabant automobiles.

The shows incorporated channel surfing, prank calls, video confessionals, a belly dancer, and live satellite transmissions with war-torn Sarajevo.

On stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including the leather-clad egomaniac "The Fly", the greedy televangelist "Mirror Ball Man", and the devilish "MacPhisto".

In contrast to other U2 tours, each of the Zoo TV shows opened with six to eight consecutive new songs before older material was played.

Setlist:

Zoo Station

The Fly

Even Better Than The Real Thing

Mysterious Ways

One / Hear Us Coming (snippet) / Unchained Melody (snippet)

Until the End of the World

New Year's Day

Numb

Babyface

Angel of Harlem

Dancing Queen

Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Satellite Of Love

Bad / Irish Heartbeat (snippet) / The First Time (snippet)

Bullet the Blue Sky

Running To Stand Still

Where the Streets Have No Name

Pride (In the Name of Love)

Encore(s):

Desire / You Make Me Feel So Young (snippet) / Green Green Grass Of Home (snippet)

I Just Called To Say I Love You (snippet) / Ultraviolet (Light My Way) / My Way (snippet)

With or Without You / Shine Like Stars (snippet)

Love Is Blindness

Can't Help Falling In Love

ARCHIVE REVIEW
by Steve Duffy, South Wales Echo

The band too have moved on, as they must. CNN and NBC were the perfect backing for the PVC of Bono as band started with a huge chunk from their previous album Achtung Baby - techno-rock gloss of Even Better Than The Real Thing, The Fly (and with exotic dancer) Mysterious Ways, three tracks which stand with Us2 best.

Normal service was quickly resumed with New Year’s Day, who struck the crowd dumb with his new solo, effort, Numb.

On Babyface, Bono invites a girl up - these days she gets a camcorder rather than a kiss, and promptly zooms in on his crotch.

the band at last leave the technology behind to take to a small stage for semi-acoustic segment - a memorable Angel Of Harlem, an improbably good version of Abba’s Dancing Queen, the excellent Stay (Faraway So Close) from Zooropa and Satellite of Love (with fuzzy image of Lou Reed bearing down).

The crowd are predictably welcoming for the U2 - the anthems’ segment.

The old stadium rock atmosphere is recreated for Bad, although Bullet The Blue Sky is, with out irony, turned into a horrid Nuremberg style rally, to a backdrop of burning crosses turning into swastikas, Bono ending with clenched salute declaring, "We must not let this happen again." Please don’t.

They finish with Where The Streets Have No Name and Pride, and we’re left with a relaxation video of tropical fish.

Bono returns for the encore as MacPhisto - dressed in gold glitter suit, platform shoes, red devil horns and lip gloss for Desire.

Then it’s on the mobile phone to Lady Thatcher.

the band may have matured musically, but not politically - a naive call to the Commons in the summer recess to sing I Just Called To Say I Love You to The Lady (wrong number too), to be told by a telephonist to write in.

We should all write "Capitalism Suck" 100 times on our £10 tour programmes and send them to the band.

It ends wonderfully quietly - Love Is Blindness and a quick impression of Elvis before a simple sign off with I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.

"Elvis Is Still In The Stadium," were his last words.

Somehow Bono himself never really was.

On this day 05/08/1992 Michael Jackson

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On this day, 5 August 1992, pop superstar Michael Jackson played Cardiff Arms Park as part of his Dangerous World Tour.

The tour to promote his eighth studio album Dangerous was sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. All profits were donated to various charities including Jackson's own "Heal the World Foundation".

The tour ran from June 27, 1992, to November 11, 1993, playing 69 concerts to nearly 4 million people.

During the Europe leg in 1992, MTV was allowed to film backstage and broadcast six fifteen-minute episodes of the tour.

The show was called The Dangerous Diaries and was presented by Sonya Saul. MTV released footage of "Billie Jean" and "Black Or White" at the first show in Munich.

"Billie Jean" was released with 2 different versions, one by MTV as a special, and the other on the Dangerous Diaries documentary.

Both versions have placed a snippet of Jackson's original a cappella recording for "Billie Jean" over the live vocals when Jackson throws his fedora.

Setlist

Part 1 (Following Carmina Burana "Brace Yourself" introduction)

Jam

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

Human Nature

Smooth Criminal

I Just Can't Stop Loving You

(with Siedah Garrett)

She's Out of My Life

I Want You Back / The Love You Save / I'll Be There

(The Jackson 5 song)

Thriller

Billie Jean

Part 2 (Following Black or White "Panther" interlude)

Workin' Day and Night

Beat It

Someone Put Your Hand Out

Will You Be There

Black or White

Part 3 (Following "We Are The World" interlude)

Heal the World

Man in the Mirror

Live clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WZh7XsSXY

Michael Jackson: Dangerous World Tour review, Cardiff Arms Park, August 5, 1992

YOU can’t take your eyes off Michael Jackson - and that’s his secret.

For all the lasers, lights, tricks and treats, it’s the superstar who takes the spot-light for two hours, and holds his audience in rapt attention.

There’s strangely no contact with his band, bar a sexy brush with a backing singer - he’s out on his own.

You can argue about the voice.

He rattled through Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ at a furious pace.

With his workrate you can appreciate his breathless style.

He’s moved from Motown soul, through disco to self-styled King Of Pop.

But he delivered a showstopping I’ll Be There, and a fitting climax came with Man In The Mirror, when Jackson the Singer emerged - giving his all to the pop-gospel song, falling to the stage like James Brown.

There were stunning set-pieces from the moment he sprung through the hole in the stage, from like a waxwork, showered by fireworks, and launched into Jamm.

The dance routines - especially considering the conditions - were spectacular.

Smooth Criminal was a net gangster routine - Jacko in panama and white jacket - ending in a quick-fire shoot-out.

Thriller was strangely low key, and seemed a shorter version than at Wembley last week, but Bille Jean was stunning, Jackson in glittering black suit and fedora (soon on its way to a fan in Ely) and some feet!

There are a few quibbles - an over-reliance on video excerpts, strange lulls with nothing happening between some songs, and an annoying tendency for false endings to be applied to nearly every song, leaving them in suspended animation.

And if Heal The World at least allowed a group of Cardiff schoolchildren to be close to their hero, the song itself is nauseating schmaltz in the extreme.

Jacko is at least putting his money where his mouth is, donating “considerable” sums from the tour to young people’s causes. We can only hope some of the cash from the £10 tour “brochures” are sent to Bosnia immediately.

But before that Black Or White summed up Jackson - the lyrics have a certain irony coming from the man, but it’s a brilliant song, from Jennifer Batten’s guitar riff on, and immaculately staged.

Personnel

Dancers

LaVelle Smith (choreographer)

Dominic Lucero (Asst. Choreographer- 1992 leg)

Jamie King

Eddie Garcia

Randy Allaire (1992 leg)

Damon Navandi

Bruno "Taco" Falcon

Michelle Berube

Yuko Sumida

Musicians

Musical director: Greg Phillinganes (1992)

Assistant musical director: Kevin Dorsey

Keyboards/Synthesizers: Greg Phillinganes (1992)

Drums: Ricky Lawson

Lead/rhythm guitar: Jennifer Batten (1992), David Williams

Bass guitar/Synth bass: Don Boyette

Vocalists

Vocal director: Kevin Dorsey

Background vocals: Darryl Phinnessee,Dorian Holley,Siedah Garrett,Kevin Dorsey

On this day 19/07/1992 Bryan Adams

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On this day, 19 July 1992, Canadian rock legend Bryan Adams played Cardiff Arms Park on his Waking Up The World Tour. Support was provided by Extreme, Squeeze and Little Angels.

Review - South Wales Echo

Bryan Adams started by Waking Up The Neighbours - and anybody else at Cardiff Arms Park who might be doubting he's not here to stay.

The Canadian finished his British tour last night in fine stylec, and the party mood out front soon spread to the band. It's taken 10 years of hard slog to reach this peak, and Adams is relishing in.

His swaggering two-hour set ranged from strutting rock to ballads. But he's a rocker at heart, and while the show was (pleasingly) short on gimmicks, it was never short of passion.

Robin Hood's slings and arrows have brought outrageous fortune for Adams. And he teased the crowd before half way through launching into the inevitable (Everything I Do) I Do It For You.

There was a humourous banter with the band whether guitarist Keith Scott's grandmother isn't really Welsh, he had plaenty of home support.

Adams even demanded a rugby song from the 31,500 crowd and from his reaction, don't be surprised with a cover version of Bread Of Heaven on the next album.

He took the band breifly to a second stage, with a live favourite - Eddie Cochran's C'mon Everybody, before picking half-a-dozen fans from the crowd to join him for She's Only Happy When She's Dancing.

Then back to the main stage to finish with the Adams standard - Summer Of 69 - and Straight From The Heart, If there's a certain formula, few carry it off in such a no frills style.