Behind Bandit
I went to the recording of Bandit last night. A behind the scenes glimpse at this institution of Welsh music television… apparently. I’ve got to hold my hands up. Despite living in our fair city almost all my life, I don’t speak a word of Welsh.
And Bandit is on S4C.
The only program I watch on S4C is Sgorio and that’s only when I’m desperate for a hit of soccer. But thankfully my girlfriend Louise can speak Welsh; I was terribly worried about not knowing when to clap.
Lou heard that Bandit needed a few peeps in the audience as she’s a member of their facebook page. The promise of Race Horses sold it to her, while the promise of free beer sold it to me.
So we scrambled onto a coach outside Cardiff Castle and made our way to the ITV Wales studios at Culverhouse Cross. After some outstanding milling around by one and all, we grabbed some free beer. A few swigs of free beer then into the studio to see Y Niwl play.
Or so we thought.
I always knew, deep down, television was full of chicanery (damn you Ant & Dec!) but seeing it firsthand was heartbreaking. I will never watch TV again; until there’s something on I want to watch.
The bands had already recorded their parts for the show, so all three cameras were pointed at us, through a landscape of silver Christmas trees (it was the recording of the Bandit Christmas special), colourful beams of light and Y Niwl gamely miming along.
Under orders form the floor manager we bopped and smiled along, although Y Niwl’s Shadows-like tunes (that’s The Shadows rather than DJ Shadow) are good enough to warrant such orders being unnecessary. It was still ever so awkward feeling though and unfortunately Lou, who was resplendent in mustard and I, who wasn’t, found ourselves in the front and centre. More free beer was needed.
After a quick pit-stop, we were aligned in-front of Y Promatics, a more raucous band in the indier-than-though vein. This therefore involved more bungling movement. But at least Y Promatics were there to focus on and react to.
Unlike Racehorses, whose van broke down. Who said rock and roll wasn’t glamorous? Anyway we had to nod along and shimmy to an empty stage and to one of Y Promatics tracks. I’ve got a horrible premonition that I’m going to be looking at a different spot on the stage, dancing to the wrong beat and looking like a right plonker. Still there was free beer.
We had to do the same for the Cate Le Bon bit too. A few whoops and cheers and loitering in the background for some of Huw and Huw’s links and we were done and dusted and back on the coach (with an incredibly irate driver).
It was an interesting experience seeing how shows are filmed so it’s well worth joining the facebook group. Did I mention there was free beer? Under-18s are welcome too, they asked for ID after all.
You can see for yourself my ham-fisted attempts to look young and happening by keeping an eye out for the Bandit Christmas special.
