There are many things I can think of that I'd rather do on St David's Day night than sit in my house and watch the countless programmes that are on my television helping me celebrate my Welshness. Max 'fucking' Boyce is everywhere I look tonight, and even the thought of going to the pub on a usually quiet Tuesday night is overshadowed by the prospect of it being full of tanned sausages hell bent on getting as drunk as they can. Yup, I guess you could say that being Welsh in Wales is not exactly a great place to be on St David's Day, especially when you have a brain all of your own.

Imagine my delight then when UK post punk trio Die So Fluid announced their debut Welsh headline date for this very night, wild horses would not have kept me away. Finally I had some sanctuary from inflatable daffodils and being proud to be Welsh.

But wait, what's this? Some bright spark has decided to add two Welsh support bands to tonight's bill and suddenly I fear the worst. Please no more celtic pride; my brain can't take any more, because in the words of the maestro himself "I Wanna Rock". 

On entering the venue, I noticed that Necrocest and Cannibal God were playing the downstairs bar tonight and quickly I considered my options, I mean at least these gloomy fuckers would be as grumpy as yours truly on Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant, right? But thankfully I bit my lip and made my way upstairs to the main hall which was surprisingly not as full as I thought it would have been with such a strong local emphasis on tonight's under card, and I'm immediately greeted by opening band Brother Steve, who were something of a surprise to me. Having never previously heard of them, the four-piece were quickly pumping out a sound that was part rock and part indie, but all Brother Steve. The Cardiff lads certainly know how to pen a tune and had tempted what appeared to be a largely valleys based audience away from the bar long enough to experience their razor wire alt rock. Things were certainly looking up as I found myself writing "these guys sound like Dillon Fence" in my gig crib notes.

If Brother Steve were a surprise for yours truly tonight then Killing For Company were something of a minor musical revelation. Having never really been enamoured with what many in the Welsh media labelled 'Cool Cymru' music, I have always been more interested in the huge number of truly superb metal bands that Wales has spawned over the last decade. As a result I had rather foolishly tagged Killing For Company with that label without ever really listening to them, most probably because they once featured the drumming talents of the now sadly deceased Stuart Cable. But how wrong could I have been? Taking a large slab of the 'Phonics arena rock suss and driving it headlong into the wham glam slam of long forgotten Swansea rockers Powder whilst also giving it a sort of grunge pop twist, Killing For Company literally exploded in front of me tonight.  Something that many of their diehard fans crammed stage front had long since been exposed to and boy, did I start to feel like I had been missing out on something. 

Killing For Company's singer Greg Jones is perhaps the "edge" the band have over the many other mainstream UK rock bands trying to make it big right now. Sounding like an angry Eddie Vedder and looking like Aberdare's very best Brett Anderson-lite, the guy commands his stage with ease and grace spitting out tracks like 'Watch the Fires Burn' and 'Gone Too Far' like his next meal depended on it, and you can almost forgive him for the "Oggy Oggy Oggy" moment of madness...almost. My crib notes following the band's set simply said, "Time to wake up H this was good stuff, although they did sound a lot like Sponge".

As the headliners' road crew busied themselves making ready for the long overdue Welsh headline debut from Die So Fluid I happened to notice that the largely valleys based audience weren't as I had initially feared all about to get and up and leave and were actually hanging around to check out exactly why 'The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime'. "Cool", I thought, "at least Drew, Grog and Al should get a decent reception", then I suddenly remembered it had taken yours truly multiple listens of their third album to actually get Die So Fluid so any immediate musical epiphanies for Dai and Cheryl from Treherbert might be a long time in coming, but at least they were trying. 

Taking to the stage like some glamorous industrial revolution with a moody 'Vorvolaka' and then a sledgehammer version of 'Happy Halloween' I'm mindful of the fact that this is pretty full on stuff, and the Fluid's wall of sound was certainly set to maximum volume tonight, meaning that the initial interest from the neutrals was soon relegated to the odd peep in from the bar rather than joining us stage front to sample this glorious gang of three in full flight.

Mixing up the aforementioned older tunes with the likes of 'Mercury' and 'Figurine' from their most recent album 'The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime' makes for a perfect balance of epic and anthemic, with each of their songs thought-provoking lyrics deserving to be etched into teenagers scrap books worldwide.

You know, you really do have to question the sanity of an industry that allows a band as switched on and essential as Die So Fluid to still be playing clubs whilst the brainless twaddle peddled by the like of Paramore sees them playing arenas and earning small fortunes with music not fit to lick the boots of tracks like 'Spawn Of Dysfunction' and 'Raven'. But witnessing Die So Fluid as headliners was not exactly what you would call an easy listening experience, and that's why the neutrals were wearing cider induced hard hats for their dancing to the skanking 'Existential Baby' and the twisting epic that is 'Test Confessional', and you start to get the feeling that this is just how the band enjoys their lot in life, being a thorn in the side of conventional rock bands and writing epic soundscapes that could very easily be movie scores rather than feelgood pap that is as quickly forgotten as it is played. I think it's safe to say that this is the perfect gothic punk remedy to my allergy of all things St David's Day, even if I do have to admit that a Grogg of Grog would have indeed been an uber cool addition to the band's already expansive merch stall.

A sultry 'The World Is Too Big For One Lifetime' and a finale of 'Not Everybody Gets A Happy Ending' were tonight's highlights for me and recalling my time with the band at last year's Hard Rock Hell where my Die So Fluid live cherry was well and truly blown. Tonight I was back for more, and loved this dirty road hardened version of the band that you should all go out of the way to see live, as their music really is too big for just your one lifetime.

Long may Die So Fluid be different. The question is - dare you join them?

Now where's my leek Cup-a-Soup?