Gruff Rhys to headline Gŵyl Tawe 2025

The first details for this year’s Gŵyl Tawe, Swansea’s Welsh language contemporary music and arts festival, have been announced, with a headline performance from Gruff Rhys.

Returning to the National Waterfront Museum in the city’s marina on Saturday 7 June, the 2025 edition will be headlined by Gruff Rhys, the renowned frontman of Super Furry Animals.

The ‘Furries’ have been able to achieve that rarest of mixes, artistic adventure with popular devotion, blending rock, pure harmonies and cutting edge electronics.

With his other band, Neon Neon, Rhys has documented the lives of maverick car maker John DeLorean and Italian activist and publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in widescreen style.

With their blissful melodies, his solo records have explored untapped areas lyrically too.

Critical acclaim

Gruff Rhys’s ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth’, released in 2005, revelled in Welsh puns; 2014’s ‘American Interior’ celebrated the unlikely yet influential 18th century explorer John Evans; ‘Babelsberg’ offered a baroque take on the modern world in 2018; while a year later ‘Pang!’ created a multi-lingual mash-up, driven by folkish bleeps crafted in collaboration with South African artist-producer Muzi.

However, while all those records certainly explored fresh territory, the Top Ten charting ‘Seeking New Gods’ climbed lyrically and musically on to totally new terrain.

For his seventh solo record Gruff Rhys created a conceptual record about his own mountain and this became his most critically and commercially successful solo album to date.

2024 saw the release of its follow up, ‘Sadness Sets Me Free’ garnering rave reviews and acclaimed to be amongst his finest work.The full musical line-up will follow next month, with a whole host of artists to be announced across both the Museum Garden and Ocean Room stages.

Excitement building

The event is free to attend on a first come first serve basis, with the museum opening at 10am and the entertainment running until 9pm.

Tomos Jones; Head Officer, Menter Iaith Abertawe / Creative Director, Gŵyl Tawe said: “We are delighted to welcome Gruff Rhys and his band to Swansea for this year’s Gŵyl Tawe.

“This year’s festival promises to be the biggest and best one yet, and we’re excited to share the full line-up with everyone next month.

“Continuing to offer this event for free in the city centre is really important for us, and we’re looking forward to welcoming a wide variety of people here again this year to celebrate the range of Welsh language arts and culture.”

Performance

As well as the live music programme, there will also be a variety of interactive theatre performances and workshops from Mewn Cymeriad, Theatr na nÓg, and Familia de la Noche.

The museum’s Warehouse Gallery stage will feature a variety of performances from local schools, while the artist Rhys Padarn will again be offering a workshop enabling attendees to create some special Gŵyl Tawe artwork in his iconic Orielodl style.

The museum’s foyer will also host further stalls and activities from Menter Iaith Abertawe’s partners.

A new project for this year’s festival saw an open call-out for new directors to record a series of live sessions in different venues across Swansea.

These will be released through Menter Iaith Abertawe’s AM Cymru channel in the build-up to the event, as well as being shown on the big screen at the museum on the day.

Also being screened will be a special performance by a group of young people developed by members of Menter Iaith Abertawe’s weekly clog dancing and monthly folk music sessions, led by acclaimed musicians Angharad Jenkins and Rhodri Davies.

Gŵyl Tawe 2025 is delivered by Menter Iaith Abertawe in partnership with Museum Wales, with support from Swansea Council and The Bunkhouse Swansea, and funding from the Arts Council of Wales.