A sound reaction
A VERY special event celebrating one of the most epochal moments in Welsh rock history will be held in Cardiff next year.
On Saturday, June 29, 2019, Mike Peters will bring The Alarm to Cardiff University for A Midsummer Gathering that will celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of the band’s most enduring songs, A New South Wales. The event will also see a reunion with the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir who sang on the original recording.
“It’s always an immense honour for The Alarm to perform with the Morriston Orpheus”, says Peters, “The times we have sung together in the past have been at some of the most profound moments in Alarm history, and the Midsummer Gathering promises to be another one of those occasions”.
30 years ago, Wales was in the midst of enormous and seismic change, attempting to recover from the ravages of the 1984’s miners’ strike.
To understand and placate the actions being deployed in the name of Wales’ birth language, Peters undertook a creative song-writing journey, through the heart of Wales, which ultimately became the inspiration for The Alarm albums Eye of The Hurricane (1987) and Change / Newid (1989).
This unlikely journey “upstream” into Welsh culture would also lead Peters to his future wife Jules (who was studying English Literature at Bangor University), and a home country dominated by the paint spray sloganeering Nyd Y Cymru Ar Werth / Wales is Not for Sale of Cwmdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg / The Welsh Language Society.
Then as now, Peters and The Alarm were known throughout the world as an English speaking Welsh band with an enormous following, and their song A New South Wales resonated most clearly with audiences at this time.
Recorded in both English and Welsh - A New South Wales / Hwylio Dros Y Mor, was produced by Tony Visconti (Bowie / T-Rex), with backing from the Morriston Orpheus on June 25, 1989, at the BBC Wales Studios, Cardiff, and released as a double A side single in early 1990.
This most enduring of Alarm songs, went on to be recognised as the first ever bilingual song to reach the UK Top 40 and, by pointing Wales’ past towards its future, signposted the way in which a new generation of Welsh artists could express themselves with a greater linguistic freedom.
When Peters undertook a journey of discovery around Wales it was a pilgrimage that had a profound effect on him and his music.
It resulted in his band simultaneously releasing an album in English and Welsh – entitled Change / Newid. This thunderous homage to the people of the valleys featuring the spine-tingling accompaniment of the massed voices of The Morriston Orpheus Choir was its jewel in the crown.
It was a rousing, passionate, political ode to Wales.
Tickets for A Midsummer Gathering are on sale now. Find out more at www.thealarm.com