On a cold but surprisingly dry Tuesday night, it was a trip to Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach for Punk Rock Factory on their The Boyos are Back in Town tour.
The tour is a special run as it contains only dates in Wales – PRF’s home nation – after they’ve spent many months touring in various places that were not Wales.
Almost all of the tour had already sold out with just a few tickets for the final show in Narberth left by the time doors had opened and you could already tell how buzzing the sold-out Clwb crowd were.
First up was a relatively new band called Edit The Tide. The Bridgend based band had good crowd interaction and were fun to watch.
Admittedly I wasn’t too familiar with their sound but came away a fan with tracks like single Ambience and Skylines being highlights. They’re definitely going to be a great alt rock band!
Punk Rock Factory really honed in on the Welsh factor, coming on to Hen Wlad fy Nhadau (the Welsh national anthem for those of you at the back) which the crowd fully embraced, singing along, encouraged by the band. The outro even included Dafydd Iwan’s Yma o Hyd for added patriotism!
But in between that was one hell of a show. Kicking off with Pokemon, the crowd were immediately a ball of energy which was kept up throughout, screaming along to various hits including Mamma Mia, Under the Sea, We Don’t Talk About Bruno, Down Under and many more.
On stage, the quartet were full of energy and jokes and Peej and Benj even swapped instruments for the aforementioned Down Under.
There seemed to be some technical issues with Benj’s bass – including prior to SpongeBob SquarePants, which led to a hilarious interaction with the crowd where Peej would start to sing the “Whoooo” before breaking into a question multiple times, with both him and Stead pointing out an extremely excited member of the crowd.
They also had a rap battle during You’re Welcome, bringing up two members of the audience to do The Rock’s rap.
You could see that all four were really enjoying it on stage, and the crowd was also loving life, screaming and dancing along to all the hits.
If you’ve not yet seen Punk Rock Factory, it is highly recommended that you grab the next opportunity (which for those in Cardiff is in November). You will not regret it as it will be one of the best nights you’ll have.