What is happening to the music scene in Wales? We take a look.

Image by Full Moon

A scene that once supported bands like Manic Street Preachers Upward, The Stereophonics and Super Furry Animals, the live scene in Wales since then has continued to show signs of stress over the past years, with the most popular reports including allegations of Womanby Street allegedly closing. With Dempsey’s closed, Bootlegger replacing The Moon and threats to build a series of apartments. What exactly has happened to the live scene?

Firstly, lets mention the locations around Cardiff, instead of centralising focus to the capital. Le Pub in Newport closed its doors recently, a seminal venues for bands to play, with past shows including Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes and 80′s band and Newport natives, The Darling Buds. Whereas, moving north, you’ve got The Tabernacle, an old chapel owned by a former manager of the label Creation Records, Alan McGee. The location is hosts gigs with some of the most influential artists of the 90′s, including Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Andy Bell and Mark Gardener of shoegaze band, RIDE.

There are crowds flocking to the Tabernacle, providing service to all the local bars and hotels surrounding the Tabernacle, leaving a positive impact on the space. Even so, the Tabernacle saw no promotion by the Welsh media, failing to turn heads. With this lack of support, very few people know about the venue/ But, they carry on and continue to hold night gigs for the sum of £3 per person. When you think of the prominence that Creation grew to in 90′s, you can not go wrong, by turning up to a Tabernacle gig.

So, what else could it be? Because, if it’s not the people, not the lack of venues and enthusiastic, well, we turn our attention to the lack of government support, especially for musical settings. The Welsh government have always been dismissive towards Welsh music scene, only in the last years have events like FOCUS Wales, an event held once a year, that supports artists and bands have seen money coming from the government to keep the event alive.

Image by Clwb Ifor

It’s easy to see that the correlation between the Welsh government wanting to support one off events rather than extending financial support to independent clubs from around the country yearly. Take FOCUS, Greenman, Eisteddfod and Festival No.6 as examples. This questions whether the government are really interested in providing support.

With lack of funding by the government, the money must come from somewhere, Le Pub, The Tabernacle, Clwb Ifor and the Bootlegger are all independent settings, entirely dependent on the income from customers alone.

Whilst The Arts Council and English and Welsh government will spend £20 million ever year on the Southbank Center in London, with all non charity venues receiving nothing. There is a serious mismanagement of money going on. This is where volunteering, protesting peacefully, running events that can raise money to give to the local Clubs, to keep the scene alive come into play.

However, the blame cannot solely be directed towards the government, independent contractors were responsible for the building plans in February 2017, which saw a proposal made to start a build including 17 flats, located above The Gatekeeper, the most popular Wetherspoons in Cardiff . Spitting distance from Clwb Ifor, The Full Moon and Fuel. But, having created a petition to put a stop to this, forwarded to the local council and Welsh Government. Luckily, the petition quickly took off with more than 6 thousand people demanding a stop to the plan. When there’s a housing crisis, where do you turn? Certainly not to the most noisy street in Cardiff.

Definitely, each factor contributes to the huge issue for the music scene in Wales, leading to an embarrassing lack of support. The scene in Wales as it is now in the position of being the most exciting ever, with new bands coming to the country, creating a diverse range of music everyday. Independent labels are shining after signing all this local talent.

Ultimately, the live scene in Wales will never expire and die, because nothing can replace the feeling of attending a live gig or atmosphere.