Love Me Do: A Robin Hood Story: The Con Artists At Cwmparc

Neil Jones on a night of Valleys' magic

Maybe I'm romanticising, but I love the idea of a band of chancers coming to the Rhondda and totally slaying the entertainment monster of conformity. A night out here comes with many reservations. The Rhondda's nightlife population is speckled with sun-bed and steroid kids, jaded thugs and amateur nihilists, and finding something to even remotely pique the imagination among the flotsam is damn hard work. Culture has always stalked this land tentatively, and for the most part people just don't want to be intimidated. The Rhondda bubble shapes and restricts all that's within, yet surely, we hope, only in Kafka's imagination can a climate stay absolutely barren forever.

Sounding just like another recipe for aesthetic blow-out, The Con Artists (named, unthinkably, though maybe brilliantly, after their first performances at their local Conservative Club), are tonight taking their first tentative steps outside their hometown of Ton Pentre. The huddled streets of Cwmparc conceal a million reasons not to, and the venue itself is no more promising. The good ol' Legion is usually one of the myriad havens for music of the cabaret kind, so to the regulars this could well seem like an invasion by the Daleks. Indeed, the atmosphere inside can be cut with a knife, and strangers throats might also be at risk. Our performing friends' instruments have taken on the importance of the medieval joker's gags, and any minute they could be consigned to crocodile pit, guillotine, or, worse - a Rhondda disco.

If the guy from Razorlight were here he would have had it already, throat slit and ego donated to the local darts team, and the gig begins with their 'In the Morning'. The song, all laid-back vocals and sparkling guitars, generally connects, but it's a tense start, and the water's still freezing cold. This is interesting. The old time shimmy of Chuck Berry's 'Rock 'n' Roll Music' is met with a number of people checking their watches for the length of time that they haven't heard a Stereophonics track, and a heartfelt performance of Oasis' 'Acquiesce' goes over the heads of all but a number of stray Britpop obscurants. The microphones of dual singers Jonny Gardner and Stuart Smith meanwhile are sounding tinny, and a staple of Rhondda showmanship is nothing if not diction. Without it, you're nothing.

A stoney-faced curiosity thus prevails throughout the already contrary Arctic Monkeys track 'I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor', raised eyebrows albeit better than thrown glasses. The conquering still has to be done, but, wait, here's the antidote to any kind of adversity, anywhere in the world: a version of The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks', rarely for a covers band, hitting all of the right notes, before, ah - the relief, a Stereophonics track. Job done? No way. Like a giant, salted snail, there goes the PA system.

Hubbub prevails in the crowd, and danger lurks, but the ironic nature of the chanting suggests that complete annihilation of the players may not be the verdict. Toilets are visited, drinks are taken, time passes, and by the time the system's resurrected and the band come back on, there's something different in the air. Like Razorlight's Johnny, The Zutons are probably too foppish to be embraced here in person. Their saxophonist Abi would raise testosterone-levels to a dangerous height, and eyebrows to the tops of baseball caps, but there's something about this song and indeed tonight's band that is burrowing away all of the crowd's hostility. There are other Valleys' bands I know who prefer to garner it, so this is a pretty unique and alternative edge.

Another exotic twist is provided by Gardner's superb harmonica playing in The Beatles' 'Love Me Do', a rare whiff of folk ingenuity floating across the venue like mystery itself. The surprises keep rolling as the retinue stick to only the finest, pop-most nuggets of the recent mainstream-alternative, along with some quaint rock 'n' roll that takes the general festivity up another notch. Gardner and Smith combine on The Libertines' 'Can't Stand Me Now' like a friendly version of Doherty and Barat, what's lost in the infamous duo's sense of danger gained in band/crowd interaction. A haven of philistinism is being slowly rendered a creative indie feast, and The Magic Numbers' 'Forever Lost' in this context takes on a vital new profundity, ebbing and shimmering with melodies purveyed sensitively enough not to miss the female vocals.

One thing the Rhondda has never lacked in is fine musicians and characters, and the Artists' lead-guitarist Adam Warren will soon be up there in the higher echelons of Welsh axe-heroes with Racing Cars' Graham Williams. Warren embellishes The Manics' 'Australia' and 'You Stole The Sun From My Heart' with Bradfield-like soul, while Gareth Beartup flitters away with stunning precision on drums, sporadically upping the stakes with the cartoon virtuosity of Animal as the crowd increasingly spill onto the dancefloor.

Of course the smallest details in indie music often create the killer moments, and the piano/keyboard in the corner is a sign that all the right laws of performance are being obeyed in this unlikely setting. Smith puts aside his bass to etch out the evocative piano opening to The Killers' 'All These Things That I've Done', before launching into its vocals with the quintessential new-wave strut of Brandon Flowers, and The Con Artists, quite brilliantly, are winning the day without even playing Bryan Adams' 'Summer of '69'.

'Champagne Supernova' is portrayed to an atmospheric T, before a fun-time medley of 'Please Mr Postman' and 'Stand By Me' has people going crazy. They simply don't want it to end, and for an encore we get the all too rare sight of Rhondda revellers dancing to nuggets like The Coral's 'Dreaming of You' and The Who's 'My Generation' rather than, say, jeering along to DJ Otzi's 'Hey Baby'. Bubbles are more likely to fill the air than intimidation, and if this is not a Rhondda revolution, I don't know what is. It may not be the real thing, but The Con Artists certainly sell the illusion. More importantly, they believe it themselves. Cwmparc succumbs, and, if only for a night, freedom is won.

© 2007 Neil Jones

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