BONG! BONG! It’s New Year, have you heard? An unorthodox time to release a concert film and live album, but Rainyday Rainbow are hardly ones to walk to heel. On the other hand, it feels pertinent to share this work as 2025 dawns; the 38 minutes show was recorded at Cardiff venue The Moon, which this time last year was open for business. Here in January 2025, it is no longer.
In the film, the band flag up the sobering fact that two grassroot venues in UK shut their doors each week. The reason for the sad state of affairs is discussed more fully elsewhere but we can throw together some basic reasons – customers still not going to smaller gigs post-covid at the same rate they did, young people who haven’t got into the rhythm of live music as a result, and the audience not drinking enough alcohol when they do get there.
No doubt Rainyday Rainbow didn’t envisage The Moon: Live From The Lunar Sea as a historical document, not so soon after shooting it anyway. But it’s ended up as exactly that. ‘This madness is a memory and our tribute’ they say of the film. That said, there is a discipline within the chaos; vocalist Egg Spectrum, Formaggio Khan on drums, Blind Captain Williams on guitar and vocals, and bassist Biscuit Based put on a psychedelic-jazz-Beefheart-punk-rock n roll show with surreal humour. And what a happy surprise to experience the gents interpret Trouble, written by and made famous by one Elvis Aaron Presley. The band speak in Raindyday tongue and play mischievous with masks. We’ve already had a quite terrifying baby in the recent past, and was it a trout replica that time?
For this, our heroes donned trippy Joseph Merrick-esque paper mache heads. Of course.
‘We originally recorded the album back in September with one of The Moon’s sound technicians, Henry Felek, at a fundraiser celebration of Arthole CIC’s 5th year anniversary ‘Gig N Draw.’ We had Sam Stevens, also known as Sam Ffoto and 1 half of Pypi Slysh, film the performance with the idea being to make a high concept concert film,’ says Egg Spectrum.
‘Our aim with it was to be as original as possible; a concert film inspired by ‘Live In San Francisco’ by Thee Oh Sees, but with the perspective of a concert goer, mashed with animated characters interacting with reality et la ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, aesthetically crumbled into a lo-fi VHS universe of lysergic pungency similar to early MTV idents.’
Rainyday Rainbow play the Swn Festival Spotlight Series on 24/01/2024 at Fuel, Cardiff with John MOuse and Lady Garden.
You can watch The Moon: Live From The Lunar Sea below.
**Warning – contains flashing images**
