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The first thing we notice is that it’s sunny. Thank God, because the Camden Crawl is a weekend packed to end with walking, geniusly contrived, we’re sure, to allow people to work off all the cider consumed.
So it was that the first and nearest pub we finally crawled into was the never-empty Hawley Arms. With room to hardly catch our breath, we order something cold and something quickly, leaning back to watch The Supernovas; a politically influenced post-punk band whose high energy set seems to get the crowd flailing. On Camden-inspired song, ‘City of Smoke’, to which half the pub are cheerfully singing along, the line “rock and roll will never die” gets us in the mood for further exploring, and when lead singer Joei Supernova brings down half the chandelier with his wayward guitar, we take that as our cue to hit the streets again.
Our next stop is the Black Heart to check out the Russian Futurists. The pub, quietly situated down a side street near Camden Town station is a far cry from the madness of the Hawley Arms. The band are an indie-pop-electronica hybrid from Canada, whose subtle melodic surprises have in the past caught the attention of Graham Coxon, and Peter Buck. There’s no point denying that’s why we’re here. Unfortunately, the band are not as deadly as their name would originally lead one to believe, and the two suited men up front, both posed in an awkward dance add a further sense of unsettlement to our already wary opinion.
When the Agitator comes onstage at the Underworld, we’re more excited. Dressed in his trademark workmen’s clothes, leftfield heavyweight and lead singer, Derek Meins catches the crowd’s adulation with an impassioned, roaring set of politically relevant songs. Set against a drum-only backing, the whole scene is reminiscent of a barricade, and the dark, damp air of the Underworld adds the final hint of wartime congregation. “Everybody thinks the bloody royal wedding is the end of the Earth,” Derek chants. “Hell yeah!” I shout back, casually pushing the previous night’s Wills and Kate memorabilia deeper into my bag. The crowd are still chanting along to “Purgatory tory tory” as we leave, and there is a sweet sense of imbued rebellion in the air. God, we love Camden.
It is now night at the festival, and anything is possible. We rush to the HMV Forum to witness Miles Kane in a pair of highly impressive red trousers. Nothing surprises us anymore. Racing through his upcoming album, Miles’ set feels seductively vigorous, and when he finishes on popular hits, ‘Come Closer’ and ‘Inhaler’, the crowd’s reaction is a much more impressive, lavish round of hoots and applause, compared to when we saw him last.
When XFM DJ Steve Harris introduces the View onto the stage, pints go flying, warmly welcoming the Scottish guitar band back into popularity. Playing a mixture of old and new songs, Kyle Falconer and co introduce a touch of summer romanticism into our night, and the audience’s chants of “The View, The View, The View” in between every song are rather innovative, we feel.
Back to Barfly to catch Ghostpoet, whose blurring of boundaries between genres has for some time caught our attention. Songs off debut album, 'Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy', draw an ambience across the heads of the quickly gathering crowds. It’s certainly pleasant to have a dose of colloquially British, synthetic soul and poetry at the end of a long day.
When Gigwise returns to the Black Heart to cool down, we’re expecting the calm vibes of earlier, a possibly dangerous observation of two suited men passed out in a heap, maybe. Instead, stools are on the floor and the barmaids are dancing on tables as Sylvia Plath Charm School, Professor Justin Spear and Tony Morly, creator of The Leaf Label, DJ into the early hours of the morning. It’s day two already, we realise, and we haven’t been to bed yet…
Camden Crawl - 2011
