“I’d like to teach the world to scream at all of the above: anxieties, maladies, and falling out of love,” yearns frontman Gareth David in one of his band’s more empowering ballads, ‘Long Throes’. As I joined the choir of a thousand impassioned fans crying the line back at him at the Students’ Union last Sunday, I couldn’t suggest a more appropriate mission statement for Los Campesinos!, the Cardiff indie rock septet still riding high almost 20 years in.
Although, ask David where his band feels most at home, and he won’t say Cardiff. Though forming at university here in 2006, none of the seven are Welsh, and only one continues living here; they have more fans in Bristol, and tend to skip Cardiff on UK tours. “I think so much of being celebrated in Cardiff and in Wales is reliant on you being Welsh, which I think is understandable, because there’s a lot of public money going into it,” he told me.
Nevertheless, if you dig into David’s lyrics, you’ll find a treasure trove of references to the city, the setting of countless late nights stumbling home and paddling in the fountain, as per their biggest hit ‘You! Me! Dancing!’. The Cathays streets David and bandmate Neil Turner used to live on are recalled in ‘Here’s to the Fourth Time!’, which made a rare appearance in the band’s encore (“Hirwain, Minny, Tewkesbury, or Brook Street/ What I’d not give just to have another week”), while an old local gets a mention in ‘Baby I’ve Got the Death Rattle’ (“On the walk back to your house in the cold from City Arms.”)
Performing their biggest anthems about Cardiff felt sensible at the Students’ Union, their first time back since 2010. Listing the music venues he frequented before they closed, like The Moon, Dempsey’s, and Barfly, David was saddened by the gentrification of Y Plas, which was formerly known as Solus. However, one positive: the VK vending machine, which he noted on stage in a moment of disbelief. “Solus was horrible, but it was horrible in a way you’d want a nightclub to be,” he told me.
A proudly independent outfit, Los Campesinos! are an outspoken and unflinchingly progressive force in the UK scene. Flying a banner on stage preaching “safety, dignity and healthcare for all trans people,” they only play at venues with gender-neutral facilities, they set aside a portion of tickets for every show for low-income fans, their opening acts always include at least one non-male member, and in a highly publicised move, last April they refused a £45,000 song licensing deal from Airbnb on the belief they profit on stolen Palestinian land. If turning down an eye-watering sum seems like a difficult move, David is quick to clarify.
“For a band like us, these decisions are easy. We’ve not got a label saying that money could help us do this and that,” he said, before forgetting the exact amount even offered, as if it wasn’t worth a second thought. David also recalled when Los Campesinos! were approached to have their music used internally by an arms company. “As a band, it’s very important for us to practice what we preach. And yeah, this was a total no-brainer.”
Diverse in age and gender, the crowd at a Los Campesinos! show is united by their cult-like obsession with the band’s music. Old heads sat together on the mezzanine floor, while the youngest of Generation Z shuffled to the barricade, in a divide made apparent when David asked to see the many hands of those not even conceived when the band formed. “One of my favourite things that people say about our band is when they’ve grown up with our music,” he said while reminiscing through their musical evolution over 19 years, all the way from 2008’s carefree, raucous Hold on Now, Youngster… to the pensive, mature All Hell from just last year. “I think when people become an LC! fan, it’s for life.”
Header photo by Sammy (@shot_by_sol). This piece was originally published in Gair Rhydd #1212, published 27 October 2025.
