Lightspeed Champion, Semifinalists and Tournements at Cardiff's Barfly

7th February, 2008

And the winner of Best Hair On A Mannequin '08 goes to... Here I am at mainstream indie haven Barfly for the second time this week for a sold-out gig involving cover stars-to-be Lightspeed Champion and Semifinalists, and it all starts with an unlikely bolt from indie folk land. Some say that Newport is Cardiff's chimneysweep (not me, I'll have you know), but if so Tournaments come out of there so far unharmed. Wearing colourful, unobnoxious T-shirts, they have the lusty folk ambition of The Decemberists and a sound that kicks the ass of most young industry wanabees, lead man Gethin Pearson's vocals genuinely passionate and Niamh Aine's violin genuinely fitting and filling out the songs really quite well. Tournaments are a quaint, captivating lesson for the Barfly masses in passion, craft and fun over pretension, and we even get a fine bit of lapsteel guitar to round things off. Here's to them never catching the mainstream indie disease.

I'd been tipped off about Semifinalists before, but I might have to disqualify the source after tonight. They're a characterful bunch, guitarist Devonte Hynes in a Russian hat and large glasses that lend him a cartoon air, the bassist jumping around like Jackie Chan and singer Chris Steele-Nicholson Brian Molkoesque-statuesque in the middle of it. I only wish I could report more on the music, which is, rather boringly and disappointingly, prog-rock plodding with not quite enough inspirational moments to hold it up. Now, how on earth can you play violin to indie rock music that isn't quite sure of itself? It's a hard task, and the bald head man in Lightspeed Champion tries, but Tournaments were much better earlier. You get the impression that Lightspeed singer Devonte Hynes has heard of Darren Hayman before, and is following the dream to be as good, but what comes out is not even one tenth of the way there. Hynes looks just as outlandish as he did earlier as Semifinalists' guitarist, the Russian hat still sitting on his head even though it's boiling up in here, but the sounds are a little too accessible, a little too studied and self-conscious rather than poignant, a little too Chris Martinesque rather than Haymanesque. There's an anthem round every corner, so it seems logical to make a straight line for the door. Tournaments, Semifinalists and Lightspeed Champion? It would have been so poetic…

© 2008 Neil Jones

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