Barfly, Cardiff
Legends are normally a long time in the making. Think of legendary music venues and names like the Hacienda, Marquee and Cavern spring to mind for the key role they played in nascent bands’ careers. However, in each case the passing of the years has only served to heap more mystery on the already epoch-making gigs to which they bore witness. It’s no mean achievement then, that in a few short years the Barfly has earned a status which ranks it alongside these illustrious names from the past.
It wasn’t always so. The beginnings, in a pub on the outskirts of Camden in late 1996, were as humble as the subsequent years have been impressive. In those early days the stench of the less than salubrious toilets would have been enough to put off even the most hardened gig-goer, had it not been for the quality of music pounding out from the PA in the Falcon’s dark, dingy back room. But soon-to-be-big bands were, from day one, a key ingredient, bringing with them an endless line of discerning music fans. Stereophonics played several times in their early, formative years, as did the likes of Death in Vegas, Feeder, Coldplay, Muse, Doves and… just about any other band who’ve tasted success in the last five years! As London listings magazine Time Out put it, Barfly was (and still is) firmly established as THE place to go to “glimpse the stars of the future”. Even Noel Gallagher (never a man to mince his words!) was moved to comment that Barfly was “ Ten years ahead of anybody ’s time”.