The Camden Crawl: Day One

Oh it’s Camden Crawl time! Or do I mean #camdencrawl time. “W00t,” they tweet. And it’s joyous: the sun is out, the streets are amoc with fearless hedonists on their way to funtimes and well, you know how it is, the tantric joy of the festival with the added bonus of a bed at the end of it all.

Oh no, you don’t. That’s why you’re reading this. So it’s noon or thereabouts, and The First Pint has found its way into our light-emitting palm (and throat). Smooth. Pint two handily lives about two metres away, Eddie Argos (in a resplendent two-piece) away from us. Shame we’re on the bloody phone and unable to stop, get down on one knee and refuse to leave until he marries us, really.

We saunter up to The Good Mixer for a bit of background DJing, and then to The Spread Eagle to catch the tail-end of Hollyoaks’ soundtrack-botherers Broadcast 2000’s set, which is sunny and lovely, as it goes. Who knew that this tiny living room-space would go on to become the temporary home for one Mr Coxon the day after?

Next on the agenda, via a battle between vanity and weakness at a sunglasses-hoarding market stall, is the Lock Tavern. Everyone is here, it’s where the VICE haters are hanging out which can only be a fortunate burden. There’s a nameless one-man band on inside who proves himself pretty darn fun. And next up is Bleech at The Underworld. SIGH. How did we end up here? Did we kill a red squirrel in a previous life? We’re not being rude, but this is the kind of thing that limbless guitarists spew out in their sleep.

In need of a lifesize pick-me-up, we head for Man Like Me who are parading their joy on the stage at the Jazz Cafe across the road. After a fair few tip-offs about this collective, our faith in the world, ourselves, politics, revolution and people is swiftly restored. A completely brilliant performance is what this is, of seismic proportions.

The mammoth combination of excitement is obvious on record, but live it’s just wow. ‘London Town’ is our favourite song right now, we’re somehow part of Man Like Me’s “rinsin’ down with the bubblin’ bassline town”. They don’t aim to teach us life lessons, but their observations are so acute that it’s impossible not fall. Biggup yr tunez an’ ting. We could happily go home at the point where we learned our new favourite diss: “now you see you’re just a sweet sticky roll/but the type with no jam, just a hole”.

Have we peaked too early? It’s possible. On the way to Circlesquare at The Monarch (almost crawling now due to it being around the ninth hour of our existence and most likely about the 13th pint of the day), we hap upon the bus with Madness on it. They’re playing something incoherent and we hang around for just long enough to get a shot of Suggs’ back. [Ed-Hey, that doesn't say "take a shot at", my gosh can't believe you had to re-read that! Get over it.] It’s triggered a bit of a thought process – wasn’t last year’s ‘headliner’ Robyn? Since when did Jools Holland get hired on A&R duties? And where’s the music that’s neither (a) a guitar band, (b) a guitar band with a hint of math-rock, (c) krautrock-toting electro or (d) faux-dubstep? M83 were here in 2008. And Youthmovies, Tronik Youth… there’s certainly a lack of variation in this year’s bill.

We eventually get down the seesaw to The Monarch, a fairly empty room of people there to see Circlesquare. Light and twangy or heavy, abstract and industrial, there’s a lot to hold our interest here. From first impressions, the music takes on noise and dance in a strangely demure fashion, in a ’sometimes too droney to amaze’ way, failing to entirely hold our attention. All the same, it does somehow capture us in a freeze-frame. Imagine Ian Curtis fronting Junior Boys.

And onto our first show of the hyped-up class of 2009 – it’s The Big Pink, at the Electric Ballroom. We’ve somehow managed to avoid the queues and once again, it’s a case of straight in and upstairs. Nicely done. Unfortunately, this band are a complete meh; their signing to the usually reliable 4AD is questionable, judging on this show. It’s early days in their gigging CV from what we can gather, but the feedbackfest is drab rather than spellbinding. Good name for a band though, right? Just a shame that they harp on My Bloody Valentine’s mud sludgery rather than their ear for a melody. Worth following though, in case perchance they do happen to figure out how they could be good.

A text message telling us that The Enemy have cancelled their 10pm Roundhouse show due to a lost voice makes us brim with glee. We are simply oozing the stuff. And the fact that they’ve been replaced by Idlewild, who we defeatistly gave up hope on catching at the Dublin Castle earlier, makes us even more contented. So off we go, and the venue’s only 25 per cent full with a mere ten minutes ’til Idlewild start. How? Miscommunication? Does everyone still think The Enemy are playing? Roddy Woomble et al turn out to be pretty great (as expected), only probably cursing on the inside at still having to play songs from the debut when they’ve moved on so very much since. We’re right up front, with a mass of well up for it crowdies to the right having a nice little jump around. This would be a brilliant point to add a photo of the plebs but for our prediliction for the all-consuming earnest nod.

Barely any between-song chat, we’re instead treated to a selection of songs from throughout Idlewild’s back catalogue as well as a very new one quite possibly called ‘City Hall’. ‘When I Argue I See Shapes’ goes down like a thunderstorm, and it’s surely about time that Idlewild get the universal respect they ought to crave.

And the final bit of live music we choose to catch is The Invisible, back at the Electric Ballroom. The utilitarianism is still lingering as atoms of ethanol punctuate the air and become at one with the walls, and this band are happily subscribing to the school – they’re on top form. ‘London Girl’ has such wonderfully mathy guitar parts set against Tom Herbert’s chunk of deliriously funky bassline, while Dave Okumu’s vocals are sweet, tranquil and perhaps the defining feature of The Invisible’s boundless polarisations. We are big fans of the loops on show here, that’s for sure.

The rest of the night speeds off into a tower, an inferno – a tsunami if you will – of oblivion. We won’t bore you with it… just wish you were there and spend the period between now and the 2010 Crawl planning your trip to spend the duo of days with us.*

*Please note that the ‘we’ voice used throughout this piece is not representative of the Muso’s Guide writers as a whole, but instead, as a personified representation of the many trails of thought inspired by the day’s events, namely conspiring to start one’s own festival in a garden of a Lord or Lady (as yet unidenfied), rid the world of landfill indie via trickery, to morph into a travelling one-man band… and so on.