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Camden Crawl is upon us again. A one-of-a-kind festival on London’s doorstep, a chance to check out what just might be your new favourite band, and a damn fine excuse to drink yourself silly in the process. Following a seven year absence, the 2005 Crawl spans ten of Camdens’ top venues from the spit and sawdust Dublin Castle to the sleazy new Koko; all filled with the best indie bands on the brink of being the next big thing. Or that’s the idea anyway…
Donning our dancing shoes we begin by sauntering over to join Do Me Bad Things at the suitably glamorous Koko. Weighing in at a healthy nine members they certainly fill the stage, but it takes supercamp singer Nick P to get close to owning it. Lip gloss and eyeliner give him the look of a young Freddie Mercury after a Soho shopping spree, but the voice doesn’t quite fit that bill. Whilst ‘Time for Deliverance’ et al are note perfect and rapturously received, the cynic in me is screaming “this is just another attempt to cash in on the same pink pound the Scissor Sisters have already sucked dry!”. Not that this crowd cares, so long as that pumping bass keeps flowing and those costume changes keep on coming.
Over next to Lock 17, and Hard Fi are doing their best to convert the masses to the lurking ska and anthemic chorus of their new single ‘Cash Machine’. Pumping out a surprisingly bright and bouncy take on ‘social realism’, they are far preferable to superchav Mike Skinner, despite the proliferation of dodgy Lacoste shirts. It’s no surprise then that their in-vogue Killers meet The Clash stomp goes down a storm, leaving indie students and poseurs alike with four new friends and smiles on their faces.
The Research are our next port of call at the newly refurbished Bullet, where we get told off for putting our feet on their posh new sofas. Thank god they don’t know what we got up to in their toilet. Bashing out their lo-fi folk-rock musings on little more than the cheapest Casio keyboard ever gigged (a bargain at £9!); the band is understandably a little overawed by the occasion. Still, a jaunty slog through tongue in cheek lines such as “Take your teeth out of my penis” keep the audience amused, if never truly enthused. And we do fancy their bassist.
Several whisky chasers and half an hour later Bullet is packed to the rafters as punters try to catch a glimpse of the deceptively softly named Nine Black Alps. Front man Sam Forest muses “I can’t believe I’m doing this, I’m only 23! Can you believe it!?” before launching into a blustering tirade of sweat, tears and fuzzed-up guitars. Blasting through ‘Cosmopolitan’ we briefly understand the comparisons to a certain band from Seattle that cannot be named for risk of cliché. The immediacy and energy are there, and these fellas are definitely ones to watch; with a couple of tours under their belt they just might grow to justify the label bidding war and press hype. One blistering set later the headliners leave the indie masses steaming and gasping for more; ready now to stumble past the semi-conscious casualties sitting on the pavement outside, toward the last tube home. Dead by Sunrise? Very nearly.
But what of the other bands we hear you cry! Word is tonight’s special guests The Buzzcocks went down a storm (naturally), Towers of London first nearly set themselves on fire, then claimed to make friends wherever they went (the big fat liars), and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster made stage diving the new black (or should that be crack?). And if that’s not enough the nice people at XFM have given everyone a shiny double CD featuring all of tonight’s’ bands. So The Chalets treat us to the bubbly “Oh Oh” so girly pop of the fantastic ‘Sexy Mistake’, Gravenhurst share some beautiful twilight clarity (despite sounding a little too much like Gene), Art Brut inform us they ‘Formed a band’ (well done fellas, here’s your chufty badge), and Le Tigre inspire visions of the Ab Fab girls attempting late 80s hip hop on ‘Punker Plus’. The Others are on there too, but don’t get us started on that travesty.
Bands and promoters alike have already hailed the Crawl a great success, and it stands as testament to the health of the burgeoning UK indie scene. There was an after show party too, but anyone who claims to remember it wasn’t really there. See you all on your hands and knees in 2006.
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