Goldie Lookin Chain At Shrewsbury Castle

11 min readMay 12, 2025

If we are going to Shrewsbury for one thing then why not take the opportunity whilst being there to do two? The last Crawley Town game of the season was away against Shrewsbury Town on a Bank Holiday weekend, so why not make a weekend of it and stay a few nights?

Unbeknownst to me, Helen had been looking at going to a Goldie Lookin Chain gig somewhere. Anywhere convenient really. And she had seen they were playing at the castle on the Friday night when we were going to be in Shrewsbury, and so tickets were acquired.

To be honest it may seem an incongruity for GLC to be playing at a castle. For those who haven’t happened across GLC before, they are difficult to describe to anyone who isn’t British, of a certain age, and without having a long-established love for people taking the piss. Out of anyone and everyone, and especially themselves. They are from Newport, in South Wales, something they refer to a lot as the night goes on. They are a self-acclaimed hip-hop collective. There are at least eight of them, but it could well be more, but seeing as none of them are capable of standing still for more than five seconds it is impossible to count them as they bounce around the somewhat cramped looking stage like a bunch of toddlers Ritalin forgot.

They came to prominence in 2004 with a top three single, and a top ten album (start as you mean to go on, they called it Greatest Hits), and they had more charting singles and another charting album over the next eighteen months and then faded away. Their songs were wonderfully irreverent and as dangerously un-PC as you can get. And if their tongues got any further into their cheeks then would burst out the side of their faces and slap you around the head. And they dress in a cross between a homage and a piss take of hip-hop artists. Garish tracksuits, caps and hats, sunglasses, and of course massive chains (all from Elizabeth Duke of course).

Some of what they do is straight from the Barron Knights / Weird Al Yankovic playbook of putting their own lyrics to existing songs, but there is a lot of original material as well. They have been labelled in some quarters (unfairly) as spoof rap. If that were the case, they certainly wouldn’t be the first, even if others have been one hit wonders, such as Morris Minor And The Majors who did “No Sleep ’Til Bedtime” back in 1987 spoofing the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep ’Til Brooklyn”.

Anyway I did buy GLC’s first two albums and until a recent sell off to reduce the vinyl in the house I had a couple of 7” and 12” singles of theirs. But post 2006 I hadn’t heard much of them. To find they were still going twenty years late having apparently released twenty albums / mixtapes was a surprise. But even with the surprise of all their releases, after I’d thought about the incongruity of them playing at a castle, I realised it probably isn’t that unusual with how many festivals are held in these kinds of locations now and with all sorts of acts playing at them.

And this gig was part of a festival. One called Loopfest, which was taking place at over forty different venues in Shrewsbury over the Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday. GLC were one of the bigger names for who the general Loopfest wristband for the weekend didn’t cover, it was an extra tenner to get in to see them.

When we got to the castle, we could hear hip-hop beats going as the third act of the evening — Trademark Blud — were just starting. There was a bit of a queue to get in, both to convert the e-mail tickets into yellow wrist bands, and then to get through the security check, which was thorough, one which would rival any airport, and put the cursory efforts at the football ground the following afternoon to shame.

With it being a bit of a surprise that GLC are still going I hadn’t thought about dressing for the gig, but not to worry, plenty of others had. Such a collection of garish polyester tracksuits in all the classic eighties and nineties brands (Fila, Ellesse, Sergio Tacchini, Kappa, etc) and even a couple of Lidl tracksuit tops (there is a GLC song the perform later called “The Middle of Lidl”), and of course chains, sunglasses, and hats. There is so much polyester on display that a stray spark could turn the whole place into a raging inferno in seconds.

Trademark Blud sounds as if he is auditioning for a place in GLC, there is humour and irreverence in his songs as well. There are sound issues (something which will raise its head again and is often the bane of events like this), his mic cuts out four lines into him having a rap battle. With himself. He must have said ‘this is the last song’ four times, but he is obviously enjoying himself too much to want to get off the stage. Eventually that line does turn out to be true and we wait for GLC to come onto the stage.

There is an interesting mic check routing going on by the sound engineers, who are having to test and ensure nine cordless mics are working, aren’t causing feedback loops if too close to the stage, and aren’t interfering with each other, not an easy task when there are only two sound engineers doing the testing. The GLC DJ comes on to turn the Welsh flag hanging off the front of the decks around, so the dragon is facing the correct way around.

And then GLC are on stage and surprisingly lively, bouncing around with an energy which makes my knees wince, which is impressive as they are all a similar age to us. Helen had gone for drinks in the interval and the bar tent had obviously underestimated the volume of thirsty GLC fans they’d need to deal with and so GLC are into their third song of the night before she gets back. I’ve been nodding along and smiling to myself at the comic ridiculousness of the lyrics, but am also glancing over with a touch of concern looking out for Helen’s return. With that and my functional dress (not a sportswear item, hat, sunglasses or chain anywhere in sight — something that with a bit of thought and planning I could have joined the polyester fire risk massive), a bloke decides I can’t be enjoying the gig and is pointing me out to his missis and laughing at me. I’m very restrained and don’t go over and smack the fuck out of the jumped-up little prick (I couldn’t set fire to him as there is no polyester to be seen on him either).

GLC have twenty years’ worth of material to pick from for their just over an hour long set, and they have their favourites, and there are the songs that need to be played as they are the ones which most of those in attendance who only have a passing acquaintance with the band will know. I find there is only one track all night I don’t recognise at all. I must have bene listening to them over the years more than I realised.

The sense of humour laced through all the tracks means we spend a lot of the night laughing heartily. GLC may have started as a joke, but it is an enduring one. And if they weren’t doing their own version of fucked up hip-hop then they could easily traverse into a career in stand-up instead. They banter with the crowd and show some great comic speed of thought in responses.

They ask the crowd if anyone is from Newport. They mean their Newport, the one in South Wales, but it is a question which without the South Wales bit can be answered in the affirmative all over the country, and even the world. Being in Shrewsbury there could easily have been locals from Newport, Shropshire in the crowd. But as it was a woman shouts; she is from Newport. GLC ask which part and when she replies, quick as a flash they reply, that’s Cardiff, not Newport, and ask if there is anyone else from Newport apart from the geographically challenged woman from Cardiff. And then they launch into “Newport State Of Mind (You’re Not From Newport),” which is basically Alicia Keys & Jay Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” with New York replaced with Newport references.

With a lot of groups they will save their biggest hit(s) until an encore, but knowing there is going to be no encore, they introduce their best know song as their number one hit for eighteen weeks (it reached number three, but don’t let the facts get in the way of a good intro) and launch into “Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do” which most people, even if they don’t know GLC from the Greater London Council of the seventies and eighties will have heard of.

It is one of those songs which to me is a comic work of genius, and I have an especial appreciation of just what they manage to shoehorn into the song to rhyme with the song’s title’s last word — do.

Ask any politician and he’ll tell you it’s true

I seen it in a documentary on BBC2

Shot to death outside Hyper Value

Guns blazing like Michael Caine in Zulu

I’m a fucking rapper and I might kill you

One — two

Yo face my shoe

My name’s Mike Balls and I’m coming through

Politicians ashamed and they haven’t got a clue

Rap is more deadly than fucking kung-fu

From Bristol Zoo

B&Q

It is a genius and scattergun approach (and yes, pun is definitely intended).

But this isn’t their finale, that is reserved for the quite frankly astounding fifteen-minute megamix rave classic version of “Your Mother’s Got A Penis.” They do the song and then get faster and faster chanting ‘your mother’s got a penis’ before the strains of Urban Hype’s “A Trip To Trumpton” blares out. There is a bit of N-Trance’s “Set You Free,” SL2’s “On A Ragga Tip”, and others which rattle through too quickly to note. During which the GLC bounce around the stage like Tigger on speed all randomly shouting out ‘your mother’s got a penis.’

And then the music stops and they all traipse off stage and we head off out of the castle and into the Shrewsbury night, passing other venues where other artists have finished their sets and their crowds are spilling out into the streets as well.

After hearing ‘your mother’s got a penis’ repeated a hundred and umpteen times it does get imprinted in your brain and it becomes an almost automatic response to any question over the next few days.

What would you like for breakfast? Your mother’s got a penis.

Where shall we sit? Your mother’s got a penis.

Would you like chips with that? Your mother’s got a penis.

Good morning. Your mother’s got a penis.

It is more of a surprise when it stops being the automatic answer to everything (thankfully just in time before a return to work).

Having the wristband for the weekend means we could have seen anyone we wanted to, but we fail to make use of it. I was intrigued to see an act called Magic Kev who were the first act of the day at the castle on the Saturday, but we were already booked onto a riverboat trip at the same time. Post football and food on the Saturday evening and with an eye on the journey home on the Sunday we didn’t venture into any of the other venues to have a listen.

I had been into St Mary’s church on the Friday before Loopfest kicked off.

It is a church under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, and if the castle grounds seemed an incongruous place for GLC to perform, seeing a stage, a bar, and lots of barrels of beer lined up in a church is even more so.

It is a shame I hadn’t had a look at the full list of artists and that we needed to be back in Crawley Sunday afternoon, as I spot that The Spitfires are playing at Shrewsbury College as the last act on the Sunday night and I’d have liked to see them as I’ve got three of their albums and they give the impression they’d be great live. Perhaps it would be worth returning for Loopfest next year without the football to get in the way, or things to be back in Crawley for.

And if we notice GLC on at any convenient venue for us to get to it would be well worth going to see them again. Complete with all the sportswear, caps, sunglasses and of course Beastie Boys style chain and VW sign.

I don’t have an exact set list, but think that this covers what they did, although not necessarily in this order.

Ice Ice Dildo

Self-Suicide

The Middle of Lidl

Baneswell Express

Soap Bar

Newport State of Mind (You’re Not From Newport)

I Love Drinking

Pink Wine All the Time

70’s Muff

You Knows I Love You Baby

Your Missus Is a Nutter