'There's no magic bullet': The battle to keep Cardiff's vital music scene from dying out

If Rob Toogood didn’t run a rock and metal venue, he’d have nowhere to put his stuff. “All this would have to be in our house,” he tells the Big Issue. “That’s what my partner says.”

“This” is no ordinary stash. It’s a shrine to metal: old Metallica touring posters, signed ticket stubs, framed merch tees. By the door hangs a photograph of the drummer from Welsh heavy metal band Bullet for My Valentine serving a pint to Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. “Just another night at Fuel,” the caption reads.

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Now a fixture on Womanby Street – widely dubbed “the beating heart of Cardiff’s local music scene” – Fuel came from modest beginnings. Frustrated by the lack of metal nights in town, Toogood, then a young DJ, launched one himself. Nineteen years on, he runs a full-blown venue with gigs most nights of the week.

“We wanted to be open so that – I mean, I’d hate for you to come to town on a Monday and have nowhere to go,” he says.

“It’s a metal bar. But it’s a really inclusive space. We have a regular who comes in, full goth make up, the face paint, all of it. Then you get people just coming in after work for a pint. It’s a diverse crowd.”

Fuel draws fans and bands alike – “we’re booking up a few months in advance,” Toogood adds.

But it’s not all (guns n’) roses. Across the UK, the grassroots music scene is in crisis. Last year alone, 46 venues shut their doors. Another 40 stopped putting on live music. Nearly a quarter of all grassroots venues needed “emergency” support from the Music Venue Trust (MVT) just to stay open.

The MVT points to a cocktail of “extreme and totally unnecessary” pressures – rising costs, disputes with landlords and creeping gentrification – forcing venues to the brink.

Cardiff hasn’t been spared. In the last decade, beloved haunts like Gwdihŵ, Buffalo and 10 Feet Tall have all closed their doors.

Then, in January, a hammer blow: The Moon – described posthumously by Clash magazine as a “vital organ” in the city’s live music ecosystem – announced its closure.

Management blamed “the burden of a cost of living crisis and the mounting costs of running a business.”

“Every week on average two UK grassroots live music venues close. Sadly it’s now our turn,” they said.

It hit close to home. The Moon was next door to Fuel. “Since the Moon shut, we’re one of the only sort of proper little grassroots venues now, us and Porters,” says Toogood. “Where you can look people in the eye, you know, and learn your trade.”

Porters, about ten minutes away on Barrack Lane, is another surviving venue. The lively multi-arts venue offers a packed schedule of free gigs and runs a volunteer-led basement fringe theatre.

“We’ve had lots of touring acts and stuff before. We’ve had drone stuff, industrial stuff, lots of indie bands, lots of Welsh music, lots of rap, electronic stuff as well,” says Lewis Morgan, general manager at Porters. “So we try to cover as many things as we can.”

“I’m trying to think if there are any genres we haven’t covered. I think it’s only metal, because Fuel do that.”

Porters knows how precarious survival can be. In 2023, it nearly disappeared when developers moved to turn its building into flats. After a community-led campaign, Cardiff council assisted the venue to find new premises.

“It was the end of our tenancy, and the building was very old,” Morgan says. “It’s been knocked down now… supposedly being turned into Wales’ tallest building.”

Stories like this are common.

“2017 was a bit of a watershed,” says Guto Brychan, chief executive at Clwb Ifor Bach, another iconic venue just across from Fuel. He’s speaking from a green room backstage, as staff downstairs get ready for a sold-out AJ Tracey gig.

“In 2017, there was planning application to build next door, right on the other side of this wall here, where they were going to build residential properties to make it quite untenable for us to operate,” he explains. “At the same time, there was a planning application to turn the above floor of Wetherspoons into a hotel.”

The local music community pushed back hard. Hundreds of residents rallied behind Clwb, demanding the council protect the scene.

It worked. The planning application was withdrawn, and Cardiff Council commissioned consultancy Sound Diplomacy to produce a ‘Cardiff Music Strategy’. Among other things, it recommended launching a Cardiff Music City festival, and appointing a dedicated music board and music officer.

“Guto and I were in the room, where that [the Cardiff music strategy] was signed,” Toogood recalls. “It’s good that… we do now have an input directly to the council.”

Brychan now sits on the music board, which meets regularly to tackle issues facing the sector.

“There’s no magic bullet for everything, but it is a bit of a game changer to have that line of communication,” he says. “That is not the reality in many other parts of the country. In London, it’s much more hostile.”

Indeed, London venues like The Jago and The Haggerston have faced licensing clampdowns and noise complaints from local councils – a reminder of how fragile the cultural fabric can be when it’s not actively protected.

In Cardiff, the picture is more hopeful. All the venues the Big Issue spoke to praised the council’s willingness to engage, whether that means managing noise complaints sensibly or helping displaced venues find new homes.

But as Brychan warns, local government can only do so much. 

“Consider the finances of councils, after however many years of austerity,” he says. “Culture is generally one of the first things on the scrap heap to try and make savings.”

And as the cost of living crisis grinds on, punters simply don’t have the money to spend on gigs or drinks. 

“People want to help, but it’s tough. And you’ve got to pay your rent, and you got to pay your VAT and you got pay your bills. It’s really hard,” Toogood says.

Still, there are solutions on the table. One idea gaining traction is a ticket levy – an extra pound on arena or stadium concert tickets – that could be funnelled directly into supporting grassroots venues, where many big-name acts got their start.

In late 2024, the UK government officially backed the idea of a voluntary ticket levy. If meaningful progress isn’t made, a parliamentary committee is set to revisit the issue in mid-2025.

There’s also the “agent of change” principle, already adopted in parts of the UK. It shifts responsibility onto developers – not venues – to soundproof new residential buildings, protecting music spots from complaints. And there’s growing momentum around community or cooperative ownership models, which can insulate venues from sudden rent hikes or redevelopment threats.

“There are models out there that work,” says Brychan. “It’s about building resilience into the system.”

Cardiff’s music scene is close-knit, passionate and bursting with talent. But for venues, it’s still an uphill climb.

So what can you do? Morgan doesn’t hesitate. Asked the best way to support grassroots music, he has a simple answer: “Buy a beer.”

You know what to do.

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