Apr 21 2008 11:02 am, PIC: ANDY GOTT
18/04/2008 and 19/04/2008
Ahhh, the Camden Crawl – the only festival in the world that makes it possible for you to be mown down by a big fucking bus when hopping between stages. And possibly mugged. Or raped. OK, so it’s an inner-city
The Fly enters the Black Cap – sober – to see Agaskodo Teliverek (yeah, us neither), and by the time we leave, we’re feeling a bit pissed on wall-of-sound space rock fronted by a Japanese punk Barbie in recycled pyjamas. This is the sound of the apocalypse being broadcast through a radioactive chicken’s mohawked larynx. Clucking hell!
Staggering gainly forth, we’re off to the Dublin Castle where William are churning out an asteroid shower of spaced-out rock fronted by a singer who looks like an angel but sounds like beelzebub’s knackers trapped in barbed wire. Bill fuckin kill!
The
Saturday, and we’re hungover like some hanging thing. Over there. Thank fuck, then, for the return of Duels, who we thought were in danger of disappearing from our radar. Two years have passed since The Fly went and got absolutely pissed in their genial company, and, though The Fly still be a drunken cockhead, Duels sound completely in control. Having bourn the frustration of constant record label wankery – and an interview with Ian Abraham – they sound feistier and fresher than ever. Sporting a more stripped back rock sound, exemplified by new track ‘Somerset House’ – which sounds like Kasabian’s ‘Empire’ bursting through fog – Duels square up to industry indifference with a musical headbutt to their collective knackers. Have at thee!
Meanwhile, down at the Oh! Bar, impossibly young Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds seem to have brought their dad along. Centre stage, some bald-headed gonk is leading the charge, almost conducting this kaleidoscopic, mod-tinged rampage of dad-approved wonderment. Hugeness awaits for this lot, whose deftness with a catchy tune – and ridiculous youthfulness – sets them out as a male version of Operator Please. Can’t be bad.
Speaking of which, we’re off to see said antipodeans, having been cast aside from seeing the Rumble Strips by a big fat fascist guarding the door of the Earl Of Camden. Ole Fly boy turns up with special ‘do-you-know-who-I-am?’ pass, only to be told by Jabba the Hut with a radio that we can go and fuck off and that. A few short words later, and said fatso is ready to make balloon animals out of Fly’s lower intestines. Operator Please it is, then…
And good job too. Amandah Wilkinson is not so much a frontwoman as a force of nature. Resplendent under a bright red spotlight, she gives the Barfly a thunderous performance that might’ve overshadowed Friday’s Los Campesinos! bonanza. We say might’ve, because they seem to have replaced their keyboardist with a zombie, who not only fucks up their best song – ‘6/8’ – but looks about as animated as that guitarist from The Kooks watching a washing machine on spin cycle. As wrong note after wrong note gets struck, Amandah looks on in bafflement as undead Fred’s eyes merely glaze over with thoughts broadcast from some distant galaxy. The fact Operator Please still manage to make their music soar despite this makes you realise that, right now, nothing on Earth (or not) can stop them now. A glistening conclusion.
Stephen Brolan
