Madness at Cardiff Castle review: Band kicks off venue's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in style with Welsh tour date

Madness aren't strangers to putting on a regal show having famously performed a gig on the rooftop of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee back in June 2012 when they used some clever lighting tricks to transform Her Majesty's residence into a terraced street.

A decade on and Suggs and co were at another historic building - Cardiff Castle - on Wednesday, June 1 when their Welsh tour date just happened to coincide with the start of the venue's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which includes a big gig featuring Bonnie Tyler on Saturday, June 4. Read more about that here. And what a start it was...

Against the magnificent backdrop of the lit-up castle, the band were clearly in great spirits and happy to be back and touring after the pandemic and their fans lapped it up as they brought us hit after hit.

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Suggs performs to Welsh fans (Christopher Evans)

One Step Beyond is usually an opening show favourite and it didn't disappoint this time round, whipping the already excited crowd into a frenzy. As the trademark fez and pork pie headwear bobbed up and down to the music, you could also see Union Jack bowler hats and flags being waved in time to the music as Jubilee fever got under way.

As well as all the classics you expect a Madness gig to feature - Wings of a Dove, House of Fun, My Girl and NW5 - Suggs also introduced a selection of new songs written during lockdown.

It was against the backdrop of the lit-up castle (Karen Price)

And there was plenty of banter, including references to the Eisteddfod - "I was gonna do a sentence in Welsh then but I f***ing forgot it!" - and the high-profile Johnny Depp and Amber Heard libel case. A video showing clips to accompany the tracks at one point included references to Number 10's Partygate scandal.

After around an hour of music, the show was brought to an end with the glorious It Must Be Love before the encore, which we correctly guessed would feature the tracks Madness and Night Boat to Cairo.

They may have been going for 40 years but Madness are still as fresh, fun and relevant as ever and judging by the fans' reaction it was the perfect way to kickstart the Jubilee weekend of partying at Cardiff Castle.