Cardiff Barfly opened it's doors for the first time on Wednesday 11 April 2001, since then our venue has hosted over three thousand live performances - yep 3,000!
Jeff Automatic from London's Club Casino Royale & Sputnik had the task of launching Cardiff Barfly's clubnight's and shortly after on 28th April Mad4it! or Fever as it was then known arrived.

Here's the very first Club Night Flier and DJ line-up, after a few weeks Fever was a regular Friday & Saturday night pulling 250 plus.

We've had some absolutely storming nights, Juliette Lewis, Zane Low, Super Furries, Lostprophets & Funeral For A Friend immediately come to mind. Were you there on the Saturday in November 2001 when Wales played Australia, we opened at 5pm the sweat was running down the walls as 600 people visited our 9 hour indie/alt disco!
Electric Six and Bowling For Soup played two shows in one day thanks to Johnny Wing's persuasive prowess.

 

History of Mad4it!

There was a time when we might have been quite happy playing big party hits Mambo, La Vida Loca, and Grease, Says Mike "For different occasions we'll still do the Soul & Dance and Party stuff and even the cheesey crackers but we got very bored with it... and we really used to like punk and rock so we decided to get into playing the music we really love, great raunchy, steamy, sleazy rock & roll in all it's genres".

The opportunity arose to create our night when in April 2001 London based Barfly struck a deal with Brains Brewery to transform the old Rose & Crown/Cooper's opposite Cardiff Castle into a new music venue like it's mother venture in Camden Town.

We said at the time “After five years of promoting new Cardiff/ Welsh acts at our weekly Xplosure we've been able to develop our plans for a great indie club night at The Barfly”.

We'd been doing ad-hoc Disco's whenever we knew there'd be a crowd in for whatever gig. There'd be great crowds assembled for The LA Doors and Coldplay in 2000, so we'd do a 60's Retro and Indie/Alt to follow the gigs to great success and because of the logistics at the time we weren't able to do anything on a weekly, or twice weekly arrangement.

Working names for our night's, Xplosure became Fever, Fever became Mad4it! The amount of each ingredient might change, but our DJ night's are basically the same recipe, the greatest 'credible' records from related artistic genres! ?? Oh you know!

We love to take our show on the road and try out the various sets with new audiences because like all DJ's / performers we get a buzz from it. Hell, this is Rock & Roll and it's great fun!

We started our local music night in 1996 in response to bands like Stereophonics and Feeder who complained there were no professional venues who'd give them a chance to play in Cardiff – they'd say Cardiff's best live music venue was in Newport! 

So we aimed at creating something akin to Newport's TJ's in Cardiff. Now it's particularly satisfying to see many more Cardiff venues are prepared to book our new local bands who after all only want a chance to play their own original music and develop their act.”

It had always been our dream to get great new bands playing live and combine it with a storming indie styled disco afterwards – just like Sheffield's Leadmill and Camden Town's Electric Ballroom so it is immensely pleasing that you seem to enjoy it as much as we do.

For three hours every Friday from 11pm you can visit Mad4it! at The Barfly in Cardiff, and on Saturday we're at The Meze Lounge in Market Street. Newport. It's our Indie/Alternative Hall of Fame with a rich tapestry of favourites from the Beatles, Doors, Kinks, Jam, Smiths, Prodigy, Blur, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Nirvana, Ash, Muse, Strokes, Jet, Hives and The Stereophonics to name but a few.