Two Door Cinema Club at Cardiff Castle: A Sunday Gig Outfit

Two Door Cinema Club played Cardiff Castle on Sunday 2 August, sold out, with Friendly Fires on before them and 3LIJAH opening. It was billed as the Tourist History anniversary show, which means a set of songs written in 2010 played to a Castle Green crowd where plenty of people weren't old enough to buy the record at the time.

Two things made this one different from every other night on the Castle bill this summer, and neither of them is about the music. It was a Sunday. And with Friendly Fires in support, it was a dancing gig rather than a standing one. Almost nobody dresses for either of those, and both will ruin your evening if you ignore them.

The 2010 wardrobe is back in the shops

Tourist History arrived in 2010, and so did a very specific way of dressing: black jeans, a striped top, a jacket that had seen things, and shoes you'd already worn out. It got called landfill indie for about a decade and it has been quietly reinstated, mostly by people who never lived through it the first time.

What I'd take from it is the proportion rather than the exact pieces. A slim dark trouser with a slightly boxy top is a genuinely good shape, and it happens to be one you can move in. What I'd leave behind is the studded belt, and the idea that the jacket has to be uncomfortable to count.

Friendly Fires means you are dancing, not watching

This is the bit people get wrong. A support slot from an indie-dance band changes the physics of the whole evening. You'll be warm by seven and properly hot by nine, on grass, in a crowd, with nowhere to put a coat.

So: one layer fewer than you think, and shoes with a real sole. Not a going-out heel, which sinks into a lawn and hurts by the second song, and not a delicate ballet flat either. A leather trainer with some structure under it is the whole answer, and it looks better with a mini skirt and tights than trainers have any right to.

And then it is a Sunday

Doors at five on the Castle Green, headline set done around half ten, and you're walking back through the middle of Cardiff with work or a nine o'clock lecture waiting. That's a genuine constraint, and it should change what you put on.

In practice that rules out anything needing dry cleaning, ironing or a decision. A denim jacket over the top gives you one warm thing for when the sun drops behind the keep. A bag that closes and sits across your body, because your hands will be up. Nothing white you'd mourn. My test for a Sunday gig is whether the whole lot could go in a wash on Monday morning without me having to think about it.

If denim feels too much like the 2010 costume, a cardigan does the same job and packs down smaller. It also lets you get away with a much thinner top underneath, which matters more than it sounds when the field is warm and the wind off the Taff is not.

The Castle season carries on after this one, with Hollywood Vampires on the Green on 14 August, and at least that one is a Friday. Everything above still applies apart from the Monday problem, which is the only part of a Sunday gig you can't fix with clothes.

Prices and stock on all of this shift week to week, so treat anything you like as a now-or-never.