Half Happy, em koko – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

My last gig of the year. Me and Mrs RP had booked a weekend in Cardiff as we’ve never been there before, and *then* I checked to see who might be playing live. Usually this never works out well, but this time we found that Half Happy are finishing a short tour while we’re there – and since they’ve recorded my favourite track of 2024, that worked out very nicely!

It was nice to visit this particular venue too. Years ago – 16 years ago in fact – I was backstage at the Offset Festival in Hainault. The organisers were running around all over the place and I spent a while chatting to Colin Newman from Wire, “looking after him” until the organisers could show him where to put all his stuff. Around this time, someone who told me they ran Clwb Ifor Bach joined in the chat. I don’t know who he was, but he was a nice guy, and probably not lying. I don’t recognise faces from day to day, so I decided not to seek anyone out and tell them this story now I was finally here.

Half Happy are a Cardiff band, although singer Rosalie is from Sussex. There was a good turn out for their show, and the band had a great sound throughout their 10 songs. Support was from em koko, a local act who were quite good although a little bit too ethereal for my liking.

Setlist: