I Just Read About That…

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 11, 2025] Gruff Rhys / Chris Forsyth

This was a dream show for me.  I love Gruff Rhys (and can’t believe it was all the way back in 2018 that I saw him) and then to find out the Chris Forsyth was opening?  Oh dream night.  And it was in the upstairs part of World Cafe Live (because hardly anyone knows Gruff).  It would have been intimate and amazing.

But my wife was still recovering from her surgery and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her.

Markitaneight recorded the hold night so I got to watch what I missed.  Chris played electric guitar.  He played about 25 minutes.  No set list was recorded, but he played some instrumentals and some songs with words.

I didn’t realize that Gruff was going to start the night with a 15 minute moving screening!  Which he then followed with music on his acoustic guitar.  The rest of the show was him talking about his American Interior project with slides and a soft spoken narrative.  The video has a hard time recording his spoken voice which is a bummer (but he’s fine singing).

He played songs from the album (but not in order).  And Chris Forsyth played a tasteful solo over Lost Tribes.  It looks like it was a weird, fun night.

CHRIS FORSYTH set:
Tomorrow Might as Well Be Today
You’re Gonna Need Somebody
Boston Street Lullaby [slow, serious instrumental (he had to sit for it)]
long instrumental [looped himself and played a solo over it]

GRUFF RHYS set:
American Interior ∀
Iolo ∀
Bad Friend ≅
Shark Ridden Waters ∞
Pang! ∏
Walk Into The Wilderness ∀
Lost Tribes ∀
If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme) ∞
Liberty (Is Where We’ll Be) ∀
The Last Conquistador ∀
The Swamp ∀

* set two*
Allweddellau Allweddol ∀
100 Unread Messages ∀
Y Gwenan Gorn ∀

 

∞ Hotel Shampoo
∏ Pang!
≅ Sadness Sets Me Free
∀ American Interior

 

 

 

Markitaneight recorded the night. Here’s Chris Forsyth:

Here’s Set 1 of Gruff’s night

And what he’s calling Set 2

Super Furry Animals was one of my favorite bands of the 1990s.  Their music was great and I loved that they were Welsh.  It’s unfathomable that some of their singles weren’t huge here.  Even their all-Welsh album Mwng is catchy as anything.

Since the mid 2000s they’ve been in a different musical space (and on hiatus).  Lead singer Gruff (pronounced Griff) Rhys has released several solo albums and just recently released the album Babelsberg.

I hadn’t heard any of Babelsberg, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to see Gruff live for the first time.  (I saw SFA back in the 90s, but this would be very different).

Gruff was supposed to come to Johnny Brenda’s a few years ago (he explained), but Visa issues caused him to miss the Philly date.  That show was supposed to be solo, but for this show he had a four piece band: bassist Stephen “Sweet Baboo” Black and Osian Gwynedd on piano (who I could never see because he was behind Gruff, but whom I talked to after the show).  And he had Kliph Scurlock from the Flaming Lips on drums (!).  Kliph was selling the merch (while the other guys were talking Welsh backstage) and I chatted with him for a bit.  He has moved to Wales!

When Gruff and the band came out, Gruff was carrying a bunch of signs with him.  The first one said “Babelsberg” and “Side One”  For indeed they were going to play the album in its entirety.  It’s testament to Rhys’ songwriting that they could play an entire album that I’d never heard and make it not only catchy and enjoyable but that could leave melodies in my head a few days later.

The first two songs “Frontier Man” and “The Club” both exemplify Rhys’ songwriting perfectly.  Surprisingly simple, yet thoughtful and clever lyrics fitted with terrific melodies.  And “The Club” has a coda that totally shifts the nature of the song.

The acoustics in the room were terrific.  After the show I talked to a couple of guys from Northern England who were in the States for vacation.  That vacation was built around Rhys’ tour.  They saw him the night before and were going to one more show before they went back home.  They said the sound quality at Johnny Brenda’s was far superior to the sound in New York.  Of course, they also thought I was Gruff’s manager for some reason, so I guess it’s all relative.

Having said that, Gruff’s accent is pretty thick so it’s not all that easy to understand him–even when he introduces song. I thought “Limited Edition Heart” was called Limited Edition Hat, which was funnier but made less sense.

During this song, someone’s phone rang.  So as they introduced the next song, called “Take That Call” Kliph pointed and said, no, don;t take that call.

When the first side was over, he flipped the sign to say Side two.  As he said this the guy next to me (there weren’t very many people there) left the room.  I assume he was going to the bar, but he never came back).  Gruff called out to the say that the rest of the songs are good too!  “This one is called Negative Vibes”–then he looked sternly at where the man walked and reiterated the song title.

The rest of the album was really enjoyable too. I especially liked “Architecture of Amnesia” and “Selfies in the Sunset.”  When it was over he held up the Applause sign as the rest of the band left the stage for a bit.

Gruff stayed and told us about how he missed the show last time and how these solo songs were going to be a recreation of an event that never happened.  He played three songs by himself.  The first was in Welsh and it sounded amazing.  It sounded familiar which makes me think it was from Mwng

Then Kliph came back out and he started playing drums for “Gwn Mi Wn” which he told us meant “I Know that I Know.”  It was a rerally fun song with Kliph playing a simple beat one handed and Gruff singing.  Then Osian Gwynedd came out. It was the first I’d really seen of him since Gruff blocked my view of him.  He grabbed some sticks and started pounding out a rhythm on the floor tom while Kliph was drumming too.  Then Gruff started looping his voice.  It turned a simple song into a complex and interesting piece.

One thing I never knew about Gruff is that he plays left-handed.  And he plays a right-handed guitar upside down.  This gives a lot of music an interesting sound–unlike many other songs, because the strumming pattern is inherently different.

At this point I lost track of the songs he played primarily because I didn’t know many of them.

I know he played “Candylion” and “The Court of King Arthur” (after a lengthy discussion of archaeology).

He also pulled lyrics out of his pocket and said they were going to play a song for the second time.  He told us that they played it recently on Boston and he left the lyrics on stage and someone took them.  The problem was that that was th eonly copy and he had written them earlier that day so he hardly knew them (they weren’t very good he admitted).  But so now he wrote these new ones just before the show.  The song “Everlasting Joy” was great, a more rocking track with a terrific riff

They talked about what to play next, “If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme)” or “Cycle of Violence.”  The crowd was overwhelmingly for “Words” but Kliph said that since we had the electoral college they were going to play “Cycle” instead.  A weird joke, but I knew “Cycle” and not “Words” so that was fine.

They played a terrific romping version of “Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru”

As the set came to a close, Gruff held up the Applause sign again and then these three signs:

Then he showed Kliph the “Louder” sign and Kliph went bananas on the kit.

As the night came to an end I had no idea if he’d be playing an encore (I did hope he’d do a SFA song as I see he has done one most nights), he held up one more sign: “Resist Phony Encores.”  And that was the end.

I really enjoyed the show Gruff sounded great and it was very cool to see him playing up close.

When the show was over I went to the merch table and I cracked up at the concert dates listed on the T-shirt (and poster).  It was very nice being in Babelsberg, PA for the night.

 

I don’t have a setlist, but I have part of one.  I hope to fill in the other songs, but that seems unlikely.

• BABELSBERG Side One
• Frontier Man
• The Club
• Oh Dear!
• Limited Edition Heart
• Take That Call
• Drones In The City
• BABELSBERG Side Two
• Negative Vibes
• Same Old Song
• Architecture Of Amnesia
• Selfies In The Sunset
• 3 SONGS ON ACOUSTIC GUITAR
• Gwn Mi Wn
• Candylion
• In the Court of King Arthur
• Cycle of Violence
• Gyrru Gyrru Gyrru