Cedar in Barcelona headline a triple bill that outgrew its room
On 19 September, Sala Slow hosted a triple bill with Violet Mistake, Cedar and Newborn Ghost, three bands with very different crowds and sounds sharing the same night. Catching Cedar in Barcelona carried its own pull: the band travelled from Gibraltar for a set that would end up too big for the venue’s small stage.
Before getting into the sets, the room itself deserves a mention. Sala Slow’s layout isn’t its strongest point: the space doesn’t leave much room to move when the crowd fills in, and that shows more on a three-band night than on a single-act show. The sound makes up for it, though. It comes through with real body, which matters on a bill where such different registers had to share the same desk: Violet Mistake’s postpunk, shoegaze and indie blend, Cedar’s alternative rock, and then Newborn Ghost’s own territory.
Violet Mistake, a step up from where they were
I’d seen Violet Mistake a couple of years back at Sala Taro in a short set. Since then, the band has clearly moved up a level. The energy hasn’t gone anywhere (Toni at drums is brutal, driving the rest of the band forward), but it now comes paired with a finesse that wasn’t there before. The keyboard is the addition that stands out most: it gives the sound a layer it didn’t have without thinning it out. The double guitar, when it appears, adds weight too, filling in passages that used to feel thinner.
Violet Mistake remain hard to pin to one genre, and that was clear again this time. They genuinely cover a lot of ground: postpunk, shoegaze, indie, all sitting in the same set without feeling like a forced collage. It’s an unusual mix, and for now it works because they’re not straining to make the pieces fit. What’s left is the harder part: settling into that sound, staying on stage, and letting what they already have fully take shape.
Cedar in Barcelona: a set too big for Sala Slow’s stage
Cedar were the night’s guest band, a five-piece alternative rock outfit from Gibraltar, formed in 2022 by Patrick Murphy (vocals), Harry Meenagh (lead guitar), Tom Meenagh (rhythm/lead guitar), Daniel Ghio (bass) and Daryl Pallas (drums). The band grew out of a wish to break from Gibraltar’s local tribute and covers scene and build something of their own, landing on what they call “grungegaze”: alternative rock, grunge, shoegaze and postpunk, with the guitar-heavy legacies of Brighton, London and Manchester running through it.
Five members barely fit on Sala Slow’s small stage. The show itself was very good, powerful and high-energy from start to finish, with nothing in common with Violet Mistake’s style and even less with Newborn Ghost’s. That’s where the bill’s contrast showed most: three bands sharing almost no common ground, on the same night, with Cedar playing as if there were a much bigger stage behind them.
The venue felt too small for them, and that’s my own read on what I saw: if they keep on this path, this is the kind of band that could end up on a Benicàssim or Primavera Sound bill. A festival band, built for bigger stages, the kind that needs more room to do what it does.
Newborn Ghost close out the night
Newborn Ghost closed the night, and Sala Slow’s sound did their set justice: they sounded genuinely good. It was the set where the venue’s sound work mattered most, a reminder that it isn’t a minor detail when a night has to hold three such different bands together.
The standout of the set was the collaboration with Nightcrawler, a track recorded together that Newborn Ghost played live this night. I hadn’t heard it live before, and it landed hard: one of those set moments that alone justify staying for the whole bill.
A note on the triple-bill format
One closing thought on the format itself. Three bands on one bill doesn’t fully convince me. There’s almost always one band that comes off worse, whether because of a bad slot, a crowd that hasn’t fully arrived yet, or the contrast with whatever plays before or after working against it.
Getting that formula right is hard, more so when the bill brings together genres as different as Violet Mistake, Cedar and Newborn Ghost did this time. There’s no clear recipe yet for sending all three bands home equally well served. It’s still trial and error, until something clicks.
