Red-dragon flags, rugby shirts and the strains of Road Rage drifting across the moist night air - it could only be Wales's second-biggest band on their home patch. Catatonia chose Margam Park, an idyllic spot 40 miles from home base, Cardiff, for their biggest show yet because, when lead singer Cerys Matthews was a little girl, "I dreamt I'd come back and haunt this place. It's nice to do it before I die."
The most star-like star that Britrock has produced since Boy George, the lustrous singer made a day of festival-style latrines worthwhile. Twenty thousand people stopped shoving each other into the mud the second she appeared, fantastic in silver sequins, just as what was left of daylight dipped behind the hills. It was the sort of 20th Century Fox entrance at which Matthews excels.
She would have had a lot of oomph even if the support acts hadn't been so frumpy; having a droopy Ian Brown on directly before rendered her all the shinier. It was something of an own-goal all round for Brown, who was playing his first major gig since serving two months for threatening an airline stewardess. He had obviously rehearsed his casually funky band to within an inch of their lives, but he apparently spent rehearsals practising cryptic quips. "Who's got a big fat belly? Who's on Mogadon?" - these were his attempts at livening up a crowd that regarded him with far less interest than they had earlier accorded Abba impersonators Bjorn Again.
Quite right, too. You can't come to the land of the great male voice, sing as flat as Brown (his version of Michael Jackson's Thriller was a landmark of sorts) and expect to get by on dazed charm and Stone Roses' mythology. His final sentiment, "Well, fuck you!", was reciprocated by many.
Similarly, Liverpool's much-fancied Shack were as stirring as their name. Michael (vocals) and John (guitar) Head conquered heroin habits to produce a new album of indie strummery, HMS Fable, that sounds pleasantly like Aztec Camera and The La's. Live, however, they were little more than a compendium of every mid-80s John Peel band, topped off with baseball caps and stubble.
Against such a backdrop, Catatonia could hardly fail to glow. Or rather Matthews glowed and her Cataboys were useful but anonymous. Lucky for the male four-fifths that they joined forces with such a big personality, as the guitar-led music would otherwise be a tad faceless, as illuatrated by the generic instrumental break on You've Got A Lot To Answer For. Were they to remove Matthews, who fills the roles of earth mother, barmaid and showgirl, they would sound like one of their own support bands.
It was a testament to Matthews's forcefulness that people were on their feet and singing along to the opening Storm The Palace almost before she got the first words out. But she was also, to this crowd, a potent nationalist symbol. The many flags, ubiquitous at Welsh gigs these days, fluttered madly to Londinium and Gwda Gwen, which was slightly ironic, as Catatonia have actually played down their roots on the current album, Equally Cursed And Blessed.
But not enough to resist bringing on a male voice choir for International Velvet, the one with the booming chorus: "Every day when I wake up, I thank the Lord I'm Welsh." Thousands of muddy people thanked Him with Cerys in a mingling of fandom and cultural zeal. As for the power of Cerys, there were an awful lot of people there, men and women both, willing to have her babies.
