Gruff Rhys launches Hotel Shampoo in Brighton

There are a few ways to make the first visit to a new town less fun than could be hoped for. A constant drizzle, non-existent hotel bookings and the words “bus replacement service” are but three front-runners, so kudos to Blackpool for good-naturedly providing us with all of ‘em​.

After seven hours of travel our alternative hotel feels, in the words of Seb the snapper, “like the beginning of a horror movie”. We fully expect to encounter freaky identical twin girls at the end of the corridor, but instead we get a sunken-cheeked crackhead dressed like a nu-rave lollipop lady, accompanied by a disoriented woman we swiftly surmise to be her (drunk) mum. The bedroom carpet is the crimson of tourist blood, and my bathroom towel is a size 22 woman’s blouse.

“This had better be worth it, Gruff Rhys,” we think, as we plod through the rain to find food. For he is why we’re here: the Super Furry Animals singer’s chosen Blackpool’s Gresham Hotel to host the launch party for his new solo album, Hotel Shampoo. The Gresham is co-run by two of Wales’s (and presumably the world’s, come to that) biggest Welsh-language pop stars, Tony ac Aloma, who apparently reached such airless heights of fame in the 60s and beyond that they had to up sticks and settle here instead to escape the pressure. “They sold 75,000 singles which means every Welsh language household would have a record,” Gruff explains later. “Tony got fed up of touring and thought, ‘I’m just gonna stay on one place and let people come to me,’ which is a genius idea.” We meet them, and they are the absolute personification of lovely.

But that comes later. First, it’s time to sample some of Blackpool’s famous entertainment. Only everything’s closed – everything, that is, except the disingenuously named Coral Island amusement arcade, with its pre-teen girls brandishing plastic AK-47s half their size, and row upon row of blinking, tinkling money-filching machines. Having gone all out and lost one pound twelve on one of those piles-of-tuppences-on-a-moving-staircase infuriate-atrons, it’s time to head back. We buy sticks of rock, and realise, Morrissey-style, that we’re somehow in the coastal town that they remembered to close down. And it’s Sunday. And we chose to be here.

Hotel Shampoo is so named on account of the vast number of miniature shampoo bottles (and other free ephemera) collected by Gruff since SFA got going – see also the art installation he created in Cardiff last year – and tonight’s venue choice is part of the thought process. “Every hotel needs a soundtrack,” Gruff reasons simply after the gig. “I’ve no interest in shampoo…” As Gruff’s backing band, aka support band Y Niwl, will later enthusiastically agree, performing at the Gresham is “like playing in John Lennon & Paul McCartney’s hotel” for all of them. Not for the first time, we feel a little ill equipped to comprehend the import of the situation.

But all is gritted teeth and quiet industry at the Gresham. The 46 rooms in the hotel are occupied thanks to Gruff’s ingenious “the only way to see the show is to stay the night” policy, but the earlier closure of the M6 has led to a severely late start. The punters are happy enough with pints and chat – many are lifelong Furries fans who know each other of old – and when a smiling lady (who, it later transpires, is Aloma herself) pops her head round the corner to say “the lads are running a bit late – everyone alright?”, the reaction can only be described as comparable to the moment at a wedding reception just before the newlyweds make their entrance.

“Kiss me quick, squeeze me slowly” hat count: two. The spirit, it must be stressed, is being entered into with gusto, vim and welly. Clearly nobody’s working tomorrow. Everyone’s got blue Pete Fowler-designed “Beware! Shark-ridden waters” key fobs to prove their presence at the hotel is official – everyone, that is, except us. “Where’s your blue thing?” We haven’t got a blue thing. “You need a blue thing.” Nobody gave us a blue thing, and besides, we’re not staying here anyway. “You should have a blue thing.” We’re waved in anyway.

Y Niwl, it quickly transpires, are a preternaturally accomplished instrumental surf-rock quartet. All their song titles are numbers, in Welsh. Do they play in their native tongue? I guess we’ll never know, but boy, they’re tight. Some of the crowd parrot twangy guitar licks back at them between songs, to general amusement. Subtle Y Niwl are not, their style running the zippy 60s gamut between The Castaways and Simon & Garfunkel to ? and the Mysterians. They’re terrific fun and everyone immediately wants to take them home.

And then, with a DING! of a classic Fawlty Towers-style hotel reception bell, Gruff’s onstage with Y Niwl, explaining that the night is “super-loose” before lolloping into ‘Lonesome Words’ from 2008 album Candylion. Clearly, this is to be more than just an album launch gig – and sure enough, as the night progresses the tracks from Hotel Shampoo – released through PIAS on Gruff’s own label Ovni so “I don’t have to explain to anyone what I’m trying to do,” he reveals – are joined by fan favourites including ‘The Court of King Arthur’, SFA’s ‘Drygioni’ and a near-punishingly long but elatedly received ‘Skylon’.

The 70s soft pop styling of ‘Honey All Over’ is introduced by Gruff admitting that “every song we’re doing live for the first time with live people”, and the reasons for electing to host such an intimate affair become clearer. This crowd doesn’t mind piercing feedback, false starts or fluffed lines; they’re just happy to be here, within touching distance of a man they love in a room better suited to bingo. The suggestion that the lights are too bright is met with someone standing on a chair and removing a bulb from the chandelier – on some level, all gigs should be like this.

Gruff and Y Niwl power through new single ‘Sensations In The Dark’, its giddy kids’ TV theme ambience leading immediately to the thought that it’s high time Gruff put in an appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba. “If I drop dead, it was probably deep vein thrombosis,” he notes wryly, in reference to the torturous 11-hour journey up the M6 earlier in the day.

‘Vitamin K’’s poignant ending makes up for the instrument-bludgeoning scariness of the performance; it’s true that for all their skill, Y Niwl’s natural playing style is doing something to remove the more subtle arrangements evident on the album. Elsewhere, Gruff shows off his fine way with a metaphor. In less able hands, a song like ‘If We Were Words (We Would Rhyme)’ could end up unbearably twee, but lines like “Wandering hands/Ticking together but always apart” render it sweet, cosy and perfect for the increasingly drunken love-in the evening is fast becoming.

A rollicking ‘Christopher Columbus’ is prefaced with the query: “What do you call a duelling guitar solo… with three guitars?” The answer from the cheerily rowdy crowd rattles back like lightning: “Indulgent!” Having finally settled on (ahem) a “triall”, the piss-taking tone for the rest of the night is set.

As midnight comes and goes, we realise we’re now at a serious disadvantage as non-Welsh speakers, as Gruff and band joke about (in Welsh) and lead singalongs with the audience (in Welsh). During the post-gig debriefing, all of Y Niwl and Gruff speak earnestly, passionately – and, praise be, largely in English – about the significance of the choice of venue for Welsh speakers. “I’m just in awe, seriously,” says Gruff of meeting Tony ac Aloma. It’s genuinely touching and we feel privileged to be welcomed into this uniquely homely experience.

By now, the gig is closer in spirit to an impromptu birthday party/pub lock-in than a serious musical event (news reaches us that one dad has brought his daughter here to celebrate her 21st birthday, which might explain a bit). Candylion track ‘Cycle of Violence’ descends into multiple distorted vocals, like an aural hall of mirrors – but, yes, just like that particular fairground feature, its air of menace is only surface deep and it ends up about as nightmarish as a kitten in a cardigan. It’s starting to feel like Y Niwl and Gruff could go on jamming for days, like The Grateful Dead in woolly hats, if somebody doesn’t stop them.

“At a rave in the early ‘90s, our friend thought he could fly and jumped off a dune. We all spent the night in Casualty, they drew the curtains around us with all the machines pulsating – it was quite a heavy experience,” says Gruff before unfurling ‘Skylon’, a hypnotic, mantra-like monster that appears to lift the front four rows, one by one, as if hoisted by strings. “We’re in this shit together/Let’s let each other live,” we’re all singing now – sometimes, it seems all that’s needed are three chords and the Gruff.

The night – or at least, the gig – ends appropriately with Candylion oldie ‘Beacon in the Darkness’ and a lot of delighted whooping. But while a quick scope around the room reveals many a slurring gent and at least two sleeping fans, by and large everyone’s still buzzing. In fact, one glinty-eyed couple – who appear to have, ahem, found each other during the gig – try to spirit away a stray roll of duct tape, with which to do heaven knows what in the privacy of their hotel room… but eagle-eyed tour manager Dan is there in a flash to confiscate the impromptu sex aid. It really is that kind of night.

Gruff and the band hang around for a chat and some commemorative snaps with Tony, Aloma, her husband Roy (who also co-runs the hotel) and their daughters, who’ve been keeping our glasses full all night. Our pints are now empty – indeed, Aloma cheerily admits: “For the first time in 22 years you’ve drunk all the lager and Guinness.” – and our train leaves in four hours. O diar…

All photographs by Sebastien Dehesdin