Live
< The Camden Crawl 2007
words by Charlotte Rumsey / Chris Delany / Stuart Stubbs / Kate Hutchinson
pics by
Day 1 Last year, this event might as well have been called the Camden Queue. This year, with the event spread over two days, across 15 venues with over 80 bands involved, it’s more of a Camden Scramble. And so, armed with our shiny (fluoro!) wristbands we set off in search of inspiration, excitement, beauty and venues with lax security queues…
First on the bill at stables market Cuban Bar is NYC’s Shy Child. Often compared to Death From Above 1979 – for the simple fact that there’s only two of them – you could more accurately compare their disco fused panic-pop with The Faint and LCD Soundsystem, covering Death From Above 1979. Creating a sound far bigger than a keytar and drum kit should, Pete Cafarella and Nate Smith’s urgent electro-funk draws an impressive crowd, then inspires said crowd to dance like it wasn’t six o’ clock in the evening and as if they weren’t relatively sober.
It’s then off to catch the second half of indie-grime band of the moment Hadouken! at Koko. With a hardcore contingent of neon-clad hoodies ‘proper having it’ at the front, the remainder of the audience are quite happy to stand by and await the one Hadouken! song they all know. They finish, smartly on their part, with ‘That Boy That Girl’, upon which the Koko crowd transform from being politely attentive to melted putty in the palm of Hadouken!’s flaming hand (we’re sure they’ll appreciate the Street Fighter reference). Boys in pink throw ghetto shapes and girls try to shake the polka dots off their dresses. Their finish leaves everybody on the floor.
Panting as much as we’re now sweating, we’re next off for a slice of Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, who have already packed NW1 to its rafters. To a sardine tight assembly, Fred Les’ fetching purple jacket matches the charmer’s croon of show tunes, which holds attention, but we need to move on in order to fly by The Electric Ballroom to see Jack Penate bound onstage and rip into current single ‘Spit At Stars’, as he proves to have truly mastered his own brand of pop-tinged rockabilly, before we hussle to ensure entry to a must see tonight: Laura Marling at Dingwalls.
Although this year’s Crawl doesn’t have quite the mixed bag of genres boasted by last year’s – which saw the Mitchell Brothers on the same bill as The Futureheads – 2007 does see an influx of quieter, acoustic singer songwriters, including Kid Harpoon, Emmy the Great and Scott Matthews. Yet perhaps the most striking is relative newcomer 17-year-old Marling. Playing to a crowd divided into fans and wander-iners, Marling begins her set – looking terrified – with nothing but her voice and an acoustic guitar, and, for perhaps the first time in Camden Crawl history, silences the venue almost completely. Hers is the kind of beautifully simplistic folk that has recently been the domain of male singer-songwriters such as Bright Eyes. But the kings looks to be nudged aside for a female monarch.
Squaring off day one then, Britain’s first punks The Damned, prove that they, unlike others of their time, are still capable of putting on a show without the audience cringing and crying for the old days. Having understandably slowed down somewhat since their first gig 30 years ago, Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and the rest of the original line up – with the exception of Rat Scabies, who is currently travel-writing in South Africa – focus on their more gothic, grandiose aspects, rather than attempt to recreate their youth. Although their better known punk songs such as ‘Smash It Up’ do feel a little lifeless, ‘Eloise’ sounds as grand as ever. And as Captain Sensible reasons, “Old codgers like us are having to go back on tour because of the likes of Simon Cowell ruining young music.”
Day 2
11am, day two of the crawl and the one set of the previous evening that everyone’s either bragging about seeing or sobbing about missing is Foals’ closing half hour at the Drowned In Sound hosted NW1. Fast-forward to 6:45pm and it’s no wonder then that The Underworld is being braved at capacity for a second bite at this disco punk cherry. And it tastes good. With each Foal lost in their own world of shape-pulling as all band members have a jerk-off battle (as in dance, you mucky buggers), new single ‘Hummer’ rides high for its duelling guitars, blips and pings, but no more so than any lesser known song tonight, every one a winner by a band doing experimental indie dance hooks better than anyone. Which is more than can be said for the following I Say Marvin.
Perhaps rightly so (they are playing The Camden Crawl at the age of what must be 13) ISM come across like a cock sure Automatic, playing synth enhanced pop that’s equally as give-a-toss as ‘Monster’. They’ve even got their own Pennie on bass, yapping into his mic while on an M&Ms sugar rush, who, get this, is probably the less irritating band member. That mantle goes to the only frontman ever to wear a Sonic The Hedgehog t-shirt onstage. Despite his best efforts to double up as the hilarious Jimmy Carr with inter-song banter, all attempts fall on deaf and sadly bored ears. Still, Friendly Fires over in The Cuban Bar will sort us out…once the powers turned back on.
“We’re the most unlucky band that’s ever existed,” declares exasperated vocalist Ed as the sound has cut out once again. But instead of going all Amy Winehouse on us, and storming off stage, they make amends with an impromptu drum solo and percussive instrumental. The lights finally dim and the ’Fires blaze straight into their lauded marriage of restrained house and noisy rock, the Jamie Principles cover ‘Your Love’. The pitter-pattering synth, sparse drumbeat and infectious three-note bass throb build momentum gently, until the janky guitars and Ed’s Tom Vek-esque drawl attack with urgency. Like yesterday with Shy Child, Cuban Bar is dancing the hardest out of all the Camden Crawl venues, unlike The Camden Tup, which we only enter to see Tiger Force headline to what must be said is a sparse crowd.
Ambling on stage, they instantly divide The Tup into two camps - one being composed of lost wander-iners, slightly bemused by the constant babble of blips and beats cut between slabs of ferocious guitar pummelling that echo Sonic Youth, the other made up of any number of seven-year olds, excited on blue smarties. Certainly no Help She Can’t Swim, we’re definitely in the former. So lets get South American.
Brazil’s Bonde Do Role at Cuban Bar were always going to be our crawl swansong and if it’s got to end, it’s got to end shaking it out. Launching their tribal electro hip hop (now there’s a genre to shit on New Rave), friends of CSS, Bonde Do Role, play dirrrrty funk numbers for fucking to. But that wouldn’t be appropriate here so everyone gets down to the likes of ‘Melo Do Tabaco’, which, when played live, sounds rather wonderfully like Run DMC’s ‘Tricky’.
So that’s The Camden Crawl redundant for another 363 days. It’ll be missed. But, for now, drink up and piggy back us to Marathon. There’s a battered sausage with our name on.
Originally appeared in volume 1, issue 22 of Loud & Quiet magazine
