Hollywood Vampires at Cardiff Castle, and How to Steal the Look
Cardiff Castle spent Friday night hosting Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry, which isn't a sentence I expected to write about a Norman keep. Hollywood...
Cardiff Castle spent Friday night hosting Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry, which isn't a sentence I expected to write about a Norman keep. Hollywood Vampires headlined the DEPOT Live stage on 14 August with The Damned opening, and it sold out long before the day. The green in front of the castle went over to leather, eyeliner and a lot of black.
“Four men on that stage, four completely different wardrobes, one rule between them.”
What happened on the night
Gates opened at five, curfew was half ten, and the Vampires played twenty songs plus a two-song encore. The band exists to play the music of rock stars who didn't make it out of the seventies, so the set went through The Doors, The Who, Bowie, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Johnny Thunders and the Velvet Underground alongside their own songs, then finished on the School's Out medley everybody was waiting for.
The Damned opened, halfway through their fiftieth year. That's a lot of decades of very deliberate dressing on one bill, which is why this one is worth writing up as a style brief rather than a gig review.
What the band were wearing
Alice Cooper does black leather, smeared black eye make-up, a top hat and a cane, and has done for fifty years. Johnny Depp layers scarves over waistcoats and stacks silver rings up to the knuckle. Joe Perry is all scarves and loose tailoring. In front of them, The Damned split the difference: Dave Vanian in a black three-piece with a fedora and dark glasses, which is more or less where goth got its blueprint, and Captain Sensible in a red beret, white-framed sunglasses and a red-and-white hooped jumper.
Nobody up there is dressed like anybody else. What they share is that each of them has one detail he repeats every single time, and everything else is ordinary clothing arranged around it.
That's the bit worth stealing, and it's a lot easier than a full costume. Pick your thing (rings, a hat, a red something, black eyeliner) and let the rest of the outfit be plain and comfortable.
The palette
Stage black doing the heavy lifting, with two ways out of it.
Stage Black
#101014
Oxblood
#5B1A22
Gunmetal
#4A4E57
Bone
#E6E0D4
Sensible Red
#C8102E
What an outdoor Castle show asks of you
This is the part the styling inspiration never covers. Cardiff Castle is grass, open sky and no roof over the standing area. Gates at five and a curfew at half ten means five and a half hours upright, and in August that starts in daylight and ends in the dark with the temperature well down on where it was when you walked in.
Which rules a few things out. Heels sink. Anything you have to hold, you'll be holding at eleven. And you want the warm layer to be part of the outfit rather than a coat you carry around from seven onwards. Check the bag policy on your ticket page before you leave, too, because the Castle shows publish their own and they're not the same as the rules for DEPOT's Curran Road warehouse.
The other thing about the Castle that nobody plans for is that it lets out onto Castle Street, in the middle of town, at half ten on a Friday. Half the crowd walks straight into the pubs on St Mary Street afterwards. So the outfit gets a second shift indoors, where it will be warm and busy and nothing like a field. That argues for layers you can peel rather than one heavy thing, and for a top that stands on its own once the jacket comes off.
Build the outfit: four starting points
Denim or a dress, whichever you'd rather. All four of these work under a jacket, which is the actual centrepiece.
The jacket does most of the work
A black jacket is the most useful thing you can own for a Cardiff gig, and it earns its keep twice here. At seven it's what makes a plain tee look deliberate. At half ten it's the reason you're still standing there enjoying the encore. Cropped and zipped is the easiest version, and it ties round your waist while the sun's still up.
Boots, not trainers
Grass after a warm day is firmer than you'd expect, right up until a few thousand people have stood on it. A block heel spreads the load, and a lace-up stays on your foot when the crowd moves. A stiletto will find every soft patch on the lawn. Ankle height also keeps the leg line clean under jeans.
Carry as little as you can
Crossbody, worn across you rather than off one shoulder, and no bigger than it needs to be. Phone, card, whatever you need for the walk home. Everything past that is five hours of admin.
Five things that make it work
Pick one detail and repeat it
Rings on every finger, or a hat, or a red something, or black eyeliner. One thing done properly beats four things done tentatively. Cooper has worn the same eye make-up for half a century and nobody has ever been confused about who he is.
Layer for the temperature drop, not the average
A long-sleeve top under a vest or tee costs you nothing at seven and saves you at ten.
Black on black needs texture
Otherwise it flattens under stage lighting and reads as one shape. Put leather-look against cotton, or ribbed against smooth, and let the difference do the work.
Oxblood is the way out of all-black
It sits in the same register without turning into a costume change, and it likes silver jewellery.
Silver over gold
Rock jewellery is silver. Chunky rings, a chain, hoops, as many as you fancy.
Two UK dates left
If Cardiff was the one you missed, the tour has Colchester Castle on 21 August and the Piece Hall in Halifax on the 22nd, both outdoors and both with The Damned. Same brief, and the same jacket you'll be grateful for by the encore.
Prices and stock move fast on all of this, so if something's right, don't sit on it.