Camden Crawl 2

Apr 20 2008 11:16 am,

4.0

Camden Crawl

London

18/04/2008 and 19/04/2008

Camden is crawling; with haircuts, pointy shoes and skinny girls swigging cans of Red Stripe on the hunt for Noel Fielding. This can only mean one thing; it’s Camden Crawl time. Some hefty corporate sponsorship has been brought in this year, promising a smoother running of events and The Fly arrives with baited breath and some degree of scepticism.

Friday

We are eased in gently with Lucy And The Caterpillar at Oh Bar. Now this lady has been causing some music debate of late, she is the definition of kitsch, and tends to endear or repulse all who come across her. Tonight she is dressed as a cat and she dishes out number after number of cute and slightly deranged songs along with her band. Half an hour of Lucy is like being let loose around Cadbury World, i.e. great fun if you can stomach it.

Onwards to Bombay Bicycle Club and their sun drenched indie cheeriness, a good stomach settler after Lucy if not a bit nondescript. Hot on their heels are Metronomy, who set the place alight, quite literally with their press on/off lights on their t-shirts and ironic dance routines, which are enough to crack a smile on the face of even the hardest Camden trafficker and get feet shuffling in the Electric Ballroom. We then hotfoot it down Kentish Town High Street to catch the second half of Johnny Foreigner, who are giving it what-for. You get the sense that you get more than your moneys worth with this band, they condense more angst, key changes, twists and turns into each song than is required before spitting us out into the night feeling all light-headed and wobbly. SoKo is our chosen headliner tonight, mainly because she is French, quite clearly mentally unstable and we are very curious. She belts out songs about thinking she is pregnant (when in fact she is just about to do a big fart) and wanting to look like a tiger (with a tail) on her ukulele alongside band mate Jim who she periodically screams orders at. Although SoKo is a somewhat bizarre and quiet choice for the closing slot and fails to grab everybody’s attention in the crowd, she has a whole lot of spirit for such a little lady and she captures our imagination.

Saturday

There seems to be more of a festival atmosphere about town tonight, probably because there are no commuters scurrying around and the kids have turned out in their droves for tonight’s gigathon. Proceedings begin with Duels at The Crescent who are on the brink of releasing new album ‘The Barbarians Move In’. They hit us right between the eyeballs with their dark, moody and at times violent songs about wolves, giants and obviously, barbarians. They are faultlessly tight and have added a violinist to the equation who adds a touch of feminine mystique to this raucous ensemble. We then power walk down to Dingwalls to catch The Bookhouse Boys who have just about managed to squeeze all nine members onto the tiny stage and they let rip with their Arcade Fire meets Tom Waits gypsy folk. Although this clearly does not compute with the staunch indie rockers amongst the crowd, this shower have a great chemistry going on between them and bring an air of nostalgia to the place. We stay put and patiently await the entrance of Ida Maria. 45 minutes later, on she comes, a vision in pink and cowboy boots. She is somewhere between a tomboy and a dolly whose stage presence is so natural and relaxed she looks as if she was born to do just this. Current single ‘Queen Of The World’ and ‘Stella’ prove to be big crowd pleasers as her fan base grows before her eyes, all hell then breaks loose with closing number ‘Oh My God’ during which Ida chucks water all over herself, her band and her instruments (much to the sound mans horror) and ends up in a writhing, tangled, wet mess on the floor. Convinced that’s about as good as it’s going to get, and one dodgy box of Chinese food later, we nip around the corner to see South Central, Brighton’s newest export. Five hooded members start to belt out the most blindingly loud electro you’re likely to hear this side of Aphex Twin and cram more wizardry and gadgetry into each song than is really healthy for the Cuban Bars humble sound system. The place is just starting to become a sea of dancing bodies when the power cuts out and we are plunged into darkness and silence. Thankfully, someone finds the trip switch and South Central are thrashing it out again within minutes. Five songs later and we now find ourselves in a rave scene. Absolute magic.

So there we have it, another year, another crawl. Slightly more organised thanks to Mr Red Stripe, and with friendlier bouncers, but as always there are the inevitable schedule clashes and queue-a-thons, but when the line-up is so choc a bloc with exciting new bands, and Camden is seething with good looking people, it’s gotta be worth the effort, we shall return!

Jessica Hazel

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