TaffTalk

Cardiff during the winter months becomes a place where the Christmas spirit thrives. Whether its with the market stalls, or winter wonderland, or even the Christmas lights trail at Bute Park. Having pre-booked tickets for the Christmas lights, anticipating the rain was one, but anticipating being out in a yellow weather warning was a completely different story. However, being in Cardiff whilst they announce a yellow weather warning gave us little time to cancel or change the date, therefore we had to commit.

If you find yourself in the same predicament as me, here are a few tips I would suggest you follow to still make a memorable time despite the rain. Do not wear your favourite shoes, make sure that you wear footwear that could either be wellies or walking shoes, which ever ones you do not mind getting muddy. As the lights follow a path around a park, you are either walking or concrete or for the majority it is mud, a few people collaboratively agreed how they had nearly slipped a few times.

Following on, the second tip I would advise you to follow is to wear waterproof clothing, wearing a coat with a hood did not provide the protection against the rain I thought it would. One person who was partaking in the Christmas light walk was Mark Hall. Mark had no idea about the yellow weather warning before he had arrived at Bute Park, I questioned about how he processed wearing a poncho. ”I had no hood, the only thing I could do was go to the local Spar and buy a poncho”. I continued to question whether it had worked, “I’m surprisingly dry underneath so I suppose it did work”.

The next attraction at Bute Park was the Kaleidoscope, it was a tunnel of mirrors that made you look far wider than usual. The tunnel did supply a form of shelter for a few minutes, whilst we stood under, I took to question Hannah, a worker at Bute Park . I noticed a few handprints on the glass therefore, I questioned whether they had to clean the glass to maintain the effect, “Thankfully the glass gets cleaned when I’m not on shift, so it is always in my favour, but we do have people who wipe it down every other day.”

This attraction held an honourable mention towards Wales, as the dragon features on the flag. Whilst you walk along the path, the story of the dragon is projected through speakers whilst the smoke machine releases the cloudy air, creating an atmosphere that you have time travelled and are in the depths of a dragon’s home.

Another tip I would suggest would be to bring an umbrella, pictured is Leanne Pickett who had also pre-booked tickets yet could not cancel nor change the date. “Luckily I had an umbrella in my car, if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t of bothered.” When asked if it was worth braving the rain for this Christmas activity, Leanne replied with “it might have been better if it wasn’t raining but I booked these tickets a few months in advanced so there was no way I would’ve know, at least it is still going ahead, and the children don’t seem to bothered by the rain”.

‘Icefall’ told a story through the use of the music and lights, starting off slow and delicate before transitioning into chaos and whimsy. As everyone stood watching, one thing everyone had in common was the damp muddy bottoms of their trousers that was due from having to walk through multiple puddles.

If you have similar luck to every citizen that experienced Christmas at Bute Park in a yellow weather warning, then once you step through the exit sign that translates from ‘Hwyl Fawr’ to Goodbye in English, it will stop raining for you. My final tip to you, is before you start your walk, turn around and walk through the exit and it will stop raining completely. Even though the yellow weather warning did dull my experience, it is not to say that there has been extreme hard work put into creating this and it is worth coming to see the vibrant exhibits made by people.

Blue Sky Mentality is the debut album released by indie-pop duo Good Neighbours. The duo consists of Oli Fox and Scott Verrill who come from small towns and made it their aim to escape through their music. After releasing singles since January 2024, their debut album arrived on all streaming platforms the 3rd of October 2025. The album comes after the major success of their first single ‘Home’ racking up a large number of 495 million streams on Spotify. This set Good Neighbours onto a path of success before even releasing an album.

When listening to this album I felt I had transported to 2010 as the sound of Good Neighbours felt inspired by other indie-pop artists such as Pheonix or Passion Pit. ‘Blue Sky Mentality’ opens with the track ‘Keep it Up’, a song that encourages its listeners to keep pushing through life no matter what. The infectious song features many ohs and ahs that find itself implanting an earworm for the rest of the day. Transitioning into ‘Skipping Stones’; it is one of those songs that belong in the opening of a coming-of-age film, it has the perfect airy, upbeat tone to it that fits so well with the vocals of Oli Fox. I find that this is one of the more well-structured songs on this album, as not one verse is the same as last, therefore it keeps you intrigued to keep listening. This album sounds like a pure indie-pop dream, to the point that it sounds as if it should have been released a decade ago when indie-synths had a major hold on listeners. You know an album is a good definitive indie album when certain songs feel as if they belong in an episode of Made in Chelsea.

Track 8 ‘Small Town’ emphasises what the meaning of this album that Good Neighbours are aiming to portray within their sound. The track reiterates the feeling of pushing your ’small town life’ behind you to go chase your dreams of doing what you love full time, which for this duo is creating music. Another track on this album that recapitulates leaving the small-town life is the track titled “Suburbs”. Within certain songs, a whininess tone can often come across as annoying but with this album I found that it worked with the atmosphere and made perfect sense.

One let-down of this album is that it was not released a few weeks earlier, otherwise it would have been the perfect summer album. It catches all the vibes of a warm, ‘blue-sky’ day with its upbeat, fun melodies.

Sometimes within an album, certain songs tend to mix into one, making them slightly forgetful. I found that to happen within ‘Blue Sky Mentality’; for me certain songs tended to have a similar sound which made it difficult dissociate the difference between the tracks. That does not entail that I did not enjoy the sound, it was just difficult to remember which track was titled what.

However, when the weather starts to turn for the better, i will definetly find myself soundtracking my summer with ‘Blue Sky Mentality’ by Good Neighbours.

Getting into the O2 Victoria Warehouse was business as usual, bag search, body scan, ticket check then to find the nearest bar; Only this time I wish I hadn't. For a single drink it set me back nearly ten whole Great British pounds, physically hurting my soul and my bank. Do they know we are currently at the height of the cost-of-living crisis.

Sourness over, I made my way through the crowd until I settled on a good space for the night, the right side of the stage. One thing I always look forward to at a concert is the pre gig selected tunes, and the ones blaring from the speakers did not disappoint. As the large crowd sings along to Fontaines D.C. “Favourite” I get the notion that this crowd will be a vibrant one.

Once the aussie duo took to stage, Cheers and chanting exhaled loudly, “Duh duh duh duh Royel Otis” snowballed from a small group of lads to the whole room joining in. Lead vocalist Otis Pavlovic stated how “We have never heard that one before”, Well he jinxed himself because that was all we heard following on from the moment; every break between songs “duh duh duh duh Royel Otis”, I am sure I will be saying it in my sleep.

Breaking into the song “I Hate This Tune” I felt in opposition to the title as I really did enjoy this as the opening song for the ‘Meet me in the Car’ tour. The visuals of this show communicate to the audience by using a neon pink screen that gave commandments and silly little quotes like “Meet me in Manchester” or “This Is a Song About a Friend”. One that got the crowd moving was “Dance with the person Next to you” which made you forget which warehouse you was in, was it the O2 Victoria or was it The Warehouse Project?, People who you spent the last hour bumping shoulders with turned into people you were dancing with. Having the ability to turn one big room into a party is one that Royel Otis can excel in, especially as their songs had a bouncy, energetic tone to them.

Moving through the setlist was like a journey through their discography, playing some of their earlier releases like ‘Kool Aid’ and ‘Sofa King’ which was accompanied with the visual quote “Manchester, you’re so f*cking gorgeous’; Well then, thank you very much Royel Otis. Personally, I cannot play an instrument, but watching the love Royel Maddell expresses to his guitar fired an impulse in me to go learn right away. The transition from ‘Bull Breed’ to ‘Fried Rice’ left the whole room, including me, in cheers and whistles as everyone showed awe of this band's raw talent. Moving through the rest of their music catalogue, playing songs from their first album ‘PRATTS & PAIN’ to their second album ‘Hickey’, which was released during summer this year.

After giving an Irish goodbye to the audience, we stood waiting for the return as we were all aware of what was happening.

Once Royel Otis were bored of pretending that the concert was over without playing their most popular song, all members ran back on stage hitting us with “Shall we have some Oysters Manchester”, There it is, the encore. ‘Oysters in My Pocket’ is one of those songs that even on a gloomy, cold November night, can transport you to summer and having a cheeky one in the beer garden. Until I can live that summers day again, Royel Otis will be there to give me that serotonin boost, if you’re after that same boost, then I recommend catching Royel Otis while they are on tour.