PrettyInScarlett

After the delights of Dudamel, something slightly more down to earth at Cardiff Barfly last Saturday 21st. Its been a while since I chose a gig purely on the name of the band (or something else random) but this time it was the turn of The Lizzies , who sounded reasonable from their myspace samples. Together with 3 support bands (all Cardiff based, I believe) there was quite an evening's entertainment, but was it good? First up, the rather forgettable Draw Me Stories. Second, a far more interesting band, Random Elbow Pain . Their songs are a mix of The Kooks and Guns N Roses but work quite well and they certainly drew the most support from the crowd. Worth a bookmark. The final support band, Yeltsin, were absolutely awful, mindless metal. The only vaguely interesting part of their set was the use of a violin for an intro/coda on their last song performed, which from their myspace looks to have been Grape In A Hard Place. The Lizzies were certainly more polished than the previous 3...

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel , conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra . Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out. We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really...