Fox Reviews Rock

For the festival we are travelling to Cardiff and staying in a hotel for the weekend Friday to Sunday, we have very much been looking forward to this festival of Welsh bands performing at Cardiff Castle.

We were Welsh for the day, we bought Welsh cakes which were delicious and St Jimmy had the perfect opportunity to wear his Wales Punk Rock Factory football shirt. We wandered around the great city of Cardiff and headed to the castle for the start of the festival, we got in quickly and admired the castle and the set up for the festival, there was one stage, a red dragon, plenty of food vendors and toilets and a merchandise store with plenty on offer from all the bands. The only downsides were that there wasn’t a t-shirt just for that festival and the fact that the festival had a no re entry policy so no souvenir wrist band to take home.

We went to the bar got our drinks and waited for the festival to start. Kill The Lights were the first band to come on, they are a Welsh American heavy metal supergroup with past members of Throw the Fight and Bullet for My Valentine.

They played ‘Here You Scream’ and ‘Broken Bones’ in front of a big crowd, where there was plenty of moshing. James Clark (Vocals) pointed at a guy dressed up as a mime, and said “I’ve never seen a mime start a mosh pit before”, this guy is known as the mosh pit mime who we’ve seen at Download and Slam Dunk Festivals.

Kill The Lights finished their set with ‘The Faceless’ and got everyone warmed up for the rest of day with their high energy show, they did a great job kicking off the festival.

After a short break it was time for Dream State, a post hardcore rock band who we missed out on seeing at Slam Dunk Festival. They opened their set with ‘Bloom’ and ‘Help Myself’ where Jessie Powell (vocalist) told the crowd that they don’t have a manager or a record label but we’re grateful for everyone coming to see them, it was a great to see the early bands getting a big crowd at the start of the festival.

Dream State played ‘Bittersweet Scars of My Past’ and ‘Still Dreaming’, it was really funny to see Jessie scream in songs and act scary when performing but when she spoke she was very soft, grateful and emotional which shows how human musicians are.

Toward the end of their 10 song set Jessie called out every band playing at the festival and got the crowd to cheer for each one then finished with our favourite ‘Primrose’ and kept the good vibes going for the next band.

Next band of the day was Casey who are a Post Hardcore/Shoegaze band, they opened up with ‘Puncture Wounds To Heaven’ & ‘Hell’ performing to an every growing crowd. Tom Weaver (vocalist) told the crowd that he has open heart surgery only 9 months ago and they didn’t know if they would be performing today, we all glad he was able to make a recovery and put on a great show.

Casey continued to entertain with ‘Happy’ & ‘Haze’ with the crowd enjoying the show, Tom told the crowd that one of the songs was written about someone who was there watching today.

They finished their 9 song set with our favourite ‘Little Bird’, they were very good with a more mellow vibe.

After the break it was time to see Punk Rock Factory again after we saw them play last week at Fi. Fest, if you missed that, you can read it here.
PRF started their set with ‘Boom! Shake the Room’ and ‘Friend Like Me’ with their usual high energy. They went on to play ‘Cest La Vie’ & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, where Peej (Vocals & Guitar) joked that loads of people have turned up to a festival to watch a bunch of 40 year olds play old songs like ‘Cest La Vie’ and songs about turtles.

Peej spoke about their show with Bowling For Soup and Wheatus at Wembley Arena, which we have tickets for and are really excited for. They announced a few warm up shows before the big gig at Wembley.

Throughout the festival there were two deaf interpreters communicating for every band,  when Peej said hippies he noticed the interpreter was dancing holding up peace signs , he thought it was funny so he said it a couple of times so she would do it again and then said he wanted an interpreter at all their gigs, this made everyone laugh including the interpreter.

PRF performed ‘Pokémon’ & ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’, which made us happy as they changed their set list slightly from their Fi. Fest set from the week before which meant we got to enjoy more songs, they finished with ‘How Far I’ll Go’ from Moana.

We could honestly watch these guys play all day as they never disappoint, we can’t wait for their shows at Wembley and Rock City!

Time for the 5th band, The Blackout who are a 6 piece punk rock, post hardcore with 2 lead vocalists, we’ve seen play before about 15 years ago, it was nice to see them again after all this time. They started their set with ‘Ambition Is Critical’ & ‘Children of the Night’s with the latter being one of our favourites.

Sean Smith (vocalist) asked how many Welsh were in the crowd which gave a massive cheer, then asked how many English are there in the crowd which got a bit less of a cheer, then he joked to the Welsh to get the English while we outnumber them, which got a great laugh from the crowd.

We got a nice surprise when they performed ‘I’m a Riot? “You’re a Fucking Riot!” as Jessie from Dream State came out to perform with them, which was great to see. This followed them by playing our favourite song ‘Higher & Higher’, which the crowd loved and created a lot of mosh pits.
They finished their set with ‘Save Our Selves (The Warning)’ which the whole crowd got into and made an epic finish for their show.

If you would like to know more about The Blackout then check out our exclusive interview here.

As the day turned to night it was time for the headliner, Funeral for a Friend. Since original vocalist Mathew, Davies-Kreye left the band back in 2023, Lucas Woodland of Holding Absence filled in the role and did a fantastic job as they performed their 2005 album ‘Hours’ celebrating it’s 20th anniversary.

They kicked off their set with ‘All the Rage’ & their hit ‘Streetcar’ with the crowd filled with nostalgia, they enjoyed themselves with plenty of dancing and mosh pits. They continued through the album playing notable songs ‘Monsters’ which they dedicated Dream State, ‘History’ & ‘Roses for the Dead’ along with the light show, creating a great spectacle.

Once they finished playing the album, they went off and came back for their encore to play 5 songs including ‘Rookie of the Year’, ‘Junau’ and our favourite ‘Into Oblivion (reunion)’. This capped off a fantastic end to the festival.

We loved the festival and enjoyed all the bands who performed, we felt lucky to witness a lot of Welsh talent in one place and look forward to seeing what these bands do in the future and would definitely come back to Cardiff Castle for a gig.

St. Jimmy and Rex 🖤☠️

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