Friday 24/04/09 Day One, Camden Crawl @ Various Venues, London

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The sun is out and the streets of Camden are buzzing for the best pub crawl in the UK – it can only mean one thing – it’s the Camden Crawl. This year’s instalment is bigger than ever (both in size and in the stature of the acts) but it essentially remains a festival to discover your new favourite band in a sweaty pub.

Speaking of sweat, as we roll into the Roundhouse to see The Virgins it seems the high temperatures outside are taking effect indoors too – why else would their singer Donald Cumming be clad in an unbuttoned denim top and tight jeans? Alright a more viable excuse is the female company lining the front row. It’s only half full at this stage and you don’t even have to queue for a beer but they don’t go unnoticed – this is indie pop at its cutest but we’re still not sure of the comparisons with the Strokes.

As Baddies sit backstage in Dingwalls waiting to go on vocalist Mike Webster chats politely with a lemon tea in hand. It seems like a lazy Friday evening in North London. That is until he arrives on stage and changes into the aggressive, face-contorting frontman which marks this band out as one to watch. “Wake up London!” he screams before pummelling the ever increasing crowd into the ground. The blue shirts and black trousers donned by all 4 members are misleading – this band are anything but uniform with hits-in-the-making like ‘Battleships’, ‘Holler for my Holiday’ & ‘Block it Out’ grabbing the best bits from punk, indie, pop and rock. The message is clear as they leave – ‘beat that!’

As the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are concluding in the Roundhouse we find out The Enemy have been replaced by Idlewild. To be honest though no-one seems to care when the music is this invigorating. The punter next to me even confesses “I’m going to bloody cry” as the triple whammy of ‘Maps’, ‘Zero’ and ‘Date with the Night’ round off a polished and yet chaotic display.

Quite why the Big Pink are so highly rated escapes me as they attempt to bore us to sleep in a droning, spectacle-less effort. The electronic beats and lifeless vocals are hardly aided by a Smashing Pumpkins cover which, although inspired, does nothing for the atmosphere.

Definitely time then to hot-foot it from the Electric Ballroom to the Earl of Camden where Filthy Dukes are kicking off an energy packed performance. They are wise to stick to up tempo album tracks ‘This Rhythm’ and ‘Messages’ because by about 5 minutes into the set the windows are steaming up and disappointed punters are being turned away by the bucket-load. This is the party that the Crawl deserves.

After walking through what seemed like a labyrinth of roads to reach Bullet bar I'm politely told there’s no entry to Kissy Sell Out, this is more of a health and safety thing than killjoy bouncers though so we follow the labyrinth all the way back to Dingwalls for DJ duo The Count & Sinden.

It’s definitely time for a rave by now and aided by gigantic drops, rattling bass and a nicely placed Santogold track we have Dingwalls' second find of the day after the heroics of Baddies earlier.

Speaking of Baddies, Gigwise end up at their after show DJ set at Parker McMillan and after more beer, sticky floors and Jackson 5 tracks it’s finally time to get our head down. Roll on Day 2!

Day One in photos: Featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Virgins and more: