Apr 19 2008 10:53 am, PIC: KELDA HOLE
3.5
Camden Crawl
London
18/04/2008
Ok, we’ll admit it - trudging round
Camden on a Friday night watching bands you could probably see here every other week isn’t really The Fly’s idea of fun and we approach this year’s Crawl with last night’s hangover entering its final phase, that familiar
Camden whiff of three-year old pizza doing nothing to settle our stomachs. But, then, BAAAM, it’s 6.45pm, we’re back on the voddy and Cage The Elephant are tearing our eardrums a new hole. It’s a little unfair of them to be on so early – as it goes, nothing can match up to the
Kentucky five-piece’s riotous triumph for the rest of the night. If Matt Schultz & co. can play every gig like this then they’re the next Guns’n’Roses. Only last week we saw them stumble through a drunk’n’stoned overlong set in Bethnal Green, but tonight they’re an eye-popping, ear-melting triumph. ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’ sounds like an anarchic Kings Of Leon, ‘In One Ear’ sees Matt - just after he’s mischievously told the increasingly moshing crowd “don’t move on this song, I want everyone to stand completely still,” - terrifying the staff by singing it on top of the bar whilst the spiky, spunky finale of ‘Free Love’ is witness to some admirable crowd-surfing attempts before eventually climaxing in Tucker dancing in the middle of the crowd and demanding kisses from girls. Naturally, he gets them.
Then it’s over to Electric Ballroom to see Bombay Bicycle Club and Metronomy.
West London teens BBC may be in the same year at school as Cajun Dance Party, but they’re a world removed from Cajun’s jangle-pop. Instead, this is more on the jagged, searing alt.rock ground that
US underground heroes Pavement once walked, even if singer Jack Steadman does sound more English than the chips we ate on the way. They have some amazing, skyscraping bits and a killer chorus or two more and we’ll have a fierce proposition on our hands.
Metronomy follow, mainman Joseph Mount joined by two additional musicians onstage. The three-piece play their stomping, bass-heavy disco-electro with lightbulbs pinned to their chests and, although ‘My Heart Rate Rapid’ gets the crowd in a dancefloor-throbbing headlock, most people aren’t drunk enough yet to bust their finest moves.
Then we head up
Kentish Town Road to Drowned In Sound’s night at Bullet Bar, getting there just in time to see Johnny Foreigner hit the stage. Our love affair with the Brum three-piece goes back almost two years now and we’re glad the rest of the country is catching up – tonight they go some way to matching Cage The Elephant’s sonic-carnage and prove there’s not an art-rock outfit in the country to match them. They finish their set with a monumental ‘Absolute Balance’.
Then we’re up and off again to pop our heads into Young And Lost’s night in the small room at Roundhouse. Noah & The Whale aren’t on for another twenty minutes, so we nip to down to Dingwalls to catch Make Model for five minutes and end up staying the whole set. Having seen their euphoric sonic-skyscraping only a few days before at Barfly, tonight they don’t really fire on all cylinders, although ‘Czech Neck’ is, once again, spine-tinglingly ace.
From there, it’s off for a well deserved, self-congratulatory vodka – tonight The Fly has seen more bands than it did in an entire three days at Reading last year.
Niall Doherty
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