The Molotovs at Tramshed, Cardiff: What to Wear

Cardiff gets night one. The Molotovs open their Welcome To Urbia tour at Tramshed on Thursday 3 September, doors at seven, and a tour opener is its own kind of gig: no setlist online yet, no idea which songs the band are about to decide don't work, everyone finding out together.

In case you've not caught up with them, they're siblings Mathew and Issey Cartlidge plus drummer Noah Riley, a London band young enough that the mod revival they're playing predates all three of them by about forty years. Debut album Wasted On Youth went to number three in January. They've opened for Iggy Pop, Blondie and The Libertines, and been given the nod by Paul Weller, whose advice to them was apparently to make sure they get paid.

Which matters here because they take the clothes as seriously as the songs. Suits, proper haircuts, the whole 1979 apparatus. A band in tailoring raises the room's average, and a Molotovs crowd will be sharper than a normal Thursday in Grangetown.

Tramshed, and what the room does to your outfit

Tramshed is the old tram depot on Clare Road, red brick, built in 1902, trams out of it until 1946 and gigs in it since 2015. Capacity is about a thousand, most of that a standing floor, with a raised balcony for anyone who would rather see the stage than be in it.

Standing, indoors, concrete under you. It'll be warm before support finish and hot by the encore, so build the outfit for that rather than for the weather outside. One layer on your top half. Whatever coat you bring is for Clare Road, not the room, which means carrying or tying it for three hours — don't bring the good one.

It's also not in town. Fifteen to twenty minutes on foot from Cardiff Central, and early September here is about fifteen degrees with a decent chance of rain on the way back.

Mod, without the fancy dress

The trouble with dressing for a mod revival band is that the look is so complete, and so photographed, that it's very easy to overshoot. Parka, target tee, Chelsea boots, heavy eyeliner, and you've stopped wearing an outfit and started wearing a costume.

One signal does it. A knitted polo with a collar. A pleated mini with a flat shoe. That's the reference landed, and the rest of the outfit can be entirely yours.

If you want the two pieces doing the most work, it's the collar and the hemline. Mod is a precision thing rather than a volume thing: neat neckline, short skirt with some structure in it, nothing floaty or oversized.

It's worth knowing who else is in the room, too. This is a band whose audience runs from teenagers who found them on the Jonathan Ross Show in March to men in their sixties who bought Setting Sons the week it came out. Both ends turn up dressed with intent. Nobody is grading you, but everybody is looking.

The knitted polo is the piece worth actual money out of all of this. It reads sixties on sight, it tucks into everything in the other three tabs, and it'll still be earning its place in November over jeans.

Why the shoes matter more than usual

Mod started as a shoe-first subculture and the crowd has never really let that go. Flat, dark, a sole with something to it. Which is the right call for a standing floor anyway: three hours on concrete is long, and the heel that's fine for town on a Saturday is not fine here.

Loafers are the obvious answer. Ballet flats work if the sole isn't paper thin. Trainers are allowed, they'll just be the least sharp thing you own that night. And if you'd rather see the band than be in the middle of the crowd, the raised balcony is the fix, not a higher shoe.

The jacket to wear over it

A single-breasted blazer over a mini is still the sixties proportion, and it is the rare layer that improves an outfit rather than only warming it. Buy it close to the body rather than oversized. Mod tailoring is cut narrow, and a big slouchy blazer takes the whole thing somewhere else.

If the forecast turns, and it's Cardiff in September so assume it will, a hood beats a blazer for the walk back. The parka is the most on-theme option available and I'm not pretending that's an accident, but anything hooded and unfussy does the job.

Four ways to put it together

And it's a Thursday

Which is the last thing to plan around. Doors at seven means you're out around eleven with work or a nine o'clock the next morning, so this is not the night for anything that needs ironing, anything you'd mourn a drink on, or anything you have to keep checking on.

Tickets are around £15 to £18, which is silly value for a band who'll be playing much bigger rooms by next autumn. Same warning on everything above: stock and prices move quickly, so if something is right, don't leave it sitting in a basket for a fortnight.