There’s no such Thing as too much 4th Street Traffic

Back in February, I was in Cardiff, my very first trip to Wales ever. I was there to see Mike Peters of The Alarm, who -nice guy that he is- put on an acoustic birthday concert for himself and let about 200 fans attend, as well. The place was Clwb Ifor Bach, a happening place in an alley right across from the castle, easy to find and as divy as one would expect from a happening club anywhere. Opening for Mike was a Welsh band named 4th Street Traffic, billed as “and friends” on the announcement (as in, “Mike Peters and friends”). Four kids were not what I had expected, but I was up for anything, even though they had an oddly dressed, short, skinny guy for a lead singer. The band started to play. The short skinny guy opened his mouth. And I was blown away. I had not expected a big voice like that! They played for about an hour, and they were great! Unfortunately, there was no CD to be had, and even online, they didn’t really have much of a presence besides their MySpace site.

Fast forward to Saturday. I’m at the town festival in Ludwigsburg. Apparently, there are also a bunch of visitors from its various partner cities around the world. One turns out to be Caerphilly in Southern Wales. And on the program for the evening, who should I spy but four kids from Caerphilly called 4th Street Traffic?! What can I say, the audience was treated to a good hour and a half of solid rock, and this time, they were nice enough to bring copies of their brandnew CD, Kick the Habit.

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So, if you get a chance, listen in. And if you should be lucky enough to catch them live, jump in and enjoy.