Keeping it Rhyl

When I was seventeen I used to make the nightly pilgrimage from my tiny flat on Bath Street to The Bistro in Rhyl. Every night except Tuesday, because even scenes need a day off apparently. It was a punk and alternative hangout without any bands to speak of. No live music, no stage, no grand ambition. Just a jukebox, cheap pints and a cluster of teenagers determined to make one drink last an entire evening. Pete Bethel supplied the soundtrack, spinning indie and alternative records while we danced, loitered and generally treated the place like a second home.

Eventually, someone with a calculator realised the flaw in the business model: staffing a venue all week for twenty punks sharing a single pint between them wasn’t exactly a path to financial glory. Midweek doors closed. The weekend survived. And that little chapter quietly slipped into memory.

In the years that followed, dance music swept through town and flattened what little guitar scene existed. For a while it felt like bands had simply vanished. There were flickers of life here and there — a few names, a few sparks — but nothing that really caught and spread. Without money or momentum, any sense of unity fizzled out as quickly as it appeared.

Then something shifted. The Breeding Ground arrived and suddenly the pieces started falling into place. Young bands who’d been hidden away in pub backrooms found themselves with a proper stage, a real PA, lighting, and — most importantly — an audience that had come specifically to watch live music. Those audiences didn’t just watch; they picked up instruments themselves. One wave fed the next. Add in support from nearby scenes and a growing sense of connection across North Wales, and for the first time in years it felt like something genuine was forming.

Gigs filled up. Some even sold out. Bands from outside the area started coming to play and, crucially, coming back. It felt like momentum — the kind that makes you think it might actually last.

Of course, nothing that good ever lasts forever. The Breeding Ground fell victim to the familiar logic of local bureaucracy: teenagers gathering unsupervised on the street was acceptable, but gathering safely inside a venue was not. Before long it was gone. The building itself eventually disappeared too, but its reputation didn’t. Like The Bistro before it, it passed into local folklore.

The gap it left didn’t stay empty for long. A new chapter began when gigs started popping up at Bar Blu. The idea of regular midweek shows in Rhyl — in a venue better known as a trendy nightspot — raised more than a few eyebrows. But against the odds, it worked. Wednesday nights became the new Friday. Week after week the place filled up, proving that the appetite for live music hadn’t gone anywhere after all.

Then came the next leap of faith: a new venue, The Metro, a new night, and an even bigger question mark. A Monday night launch in Rhyl, in the middle of a damp October. Optimism or madness, depending on who you asked.

The venue itself had everything going for it: good sound, decent size, plenty of space, even a slightly seedy charm courtesy of a lap-dancing bar upstairs. On paper, it ticked every box. But the real challenge was never the venue. It was the audience.

Because Rhyl is still a small town. And no matter how enthusiastic the scene becomes, no matter how many bands emerge or venues open their doors, there’s a simple economic truth that never changes: people can only go out so many nights a week. At some point, the calendar fills up, wallets empty out, and something has to give.

There’s a saturation point for everything. And in a town this size, once a week might just be the limit.

Micrographia in Rhyl

We were crammed into a taxi in a buoyant mood, halftime on the radio and Wales somehow holding their own against Poland. My phone rang out I Believe in a Thing Called Love — yes, the Darkness ringtone, yes it was cheesy, and no, I still couldn’t be bothered to change it. It was Carl Gintis, asking if we were heading to Bar Blu. Of course we were. He’d hyped Micrographia so relentlessly on my message board that not going would’ve felt like being caught miles offside. He also wanted to know if I’d enjoyed the “lament” they’d recorded for me at 2:20am the previous Sunday. I’d woken up to a two-minute answerphone epic titled Apple Pie, which I’d mistakenly credited to a mate winding me up because I’d skipped the Dudley the night before. Turns out it was a private rendition of a brand-new Gintis song. Karma balanced itself later when Carl went home thirteen pints deep and managed to christen his own carpet.

Alcohol, as usual, set the tone. Sync and I were steadily working through pints of the golden stuff, while Gwynn and a mysterious friend lurched upright to drunkenly strum a few songs. I contributed my standard heckles — “show us yer tits” and “fuck off you hippies” — and was pleasantly surprised to get a hearty “fuck off” in return. Fair’s fair.

Meanwhile, Wales did what Wales do: 1–0 up, then 3–2 down. We celebrated the goal with a pint and mourned the collapse with six or seven more.

The Circuits were meant to play, but apparently flipped open the Rock ’n’ Roll Guide to Non-Appearance Excuses and landed on the classic: “Our drummer choked on a wasp and is in hospital.” Conveniently, they didn’t show.

The crowd at Blu has shifted since the ill-fated Jives Room gig. People vote with their feet, and tonight most had chosen to stay home. The newer crowd felt more “night out” than “night for music.” About seventy people were in — quiet for Blu — and soon sixty-nine when Sync admitted defeat and staggered home, leaving me to face the band from Bangor alone.

Trying to pin down Micrographia is tricky. Imagine Flotation Toy Warning without the singer, add a handful of seasonal magic mushrooms from an Old Colwyn golf course, and take cover. That’s roughly the vibe. While their peers churn out paint-by-numbers punk, this very young band seemed to have lifted the effects tracks from a Hawkwind record and turned them into a live set. No drummer — just a surprisingly great backing track — which is high praise from someone who usually loathes drum machines. Thirty minutes flew by, a canoe ride through liquid mercury: repetitive but addictive bass lines threading between two wildly different guitars. Ridiculous metaphor, I know, but somehow it fit.

I asked the promoter what their demo sounded like. There wasn’t one. He’d booked them purely on Carl Gintis’s enthusiasm. Brave move. Worth it.

You can sit through endless nights of bands serving up the same lifeless indie-punk mush, originality as thin as a makeup advert. But every now and then, you stumble onto something like Micrographia — and suddenly all those pints and all those dull support slots feel justified.