Live

Dirty Pretty Things, Plan b, 65 Days of Static, Howling Bells

Andrew Pettman 06/04/2006

After a long lay off the Camden Crawl returned last year and was a great success. My only problem with the event was that although 40 bands played, if you wanted to see full sets you only got to see four bands. So this year I was excited to see that the event was to be extended to start at 4pm with lots of pre-events promised around Camden. So I arrived at Camden for 4:30pm to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the pre-crawl events. After collecting the CD and wristband from Sainsbury's car park I saw one of the pre-events which was Simon Price playing Stay Beautiful anthems in the corner from what looked like a market stall, very strange. After checking the programme I see that the only bands playing before 7pm are the ones in the G Lounge. There was no chance of getting into the G Lounge as its one in one out so I head to a pub to check out the line up. Notice that no other bands are on for 2 and a half hours so the early start was a waste of time.

First band I see are the Howling Bells. Having never heard them before I didn't know what to expect, they seem to specialise in gothic epic indie. It was enjoyable but considering the hype around them I thought that The Gemma Ray Ritual Band do this sort of thing a lot better. Strangest sight of the set was middle aged members of the Slits wondering around the Oh Bar. Time to change the venue so I ran off to the Underworld
To see 65 Days of Static another band who I hadn't heard before. To my ears they sounded like a heavy Mogwai with more of an electronic twist and Aphex style beats. They seemed to scare a lot of the indie kids, but they jumped around like Busted a lot on stage: I want to hear more.

Next venue on the crawl was the Electric Ballroom and we made it just in time to watch Shit Disco. I think they must have the same Gang Of Four Album as Bloc Party as a lot of the bass lines sounded very similar, I did like the two bass players on stage and they get bonus points for their glow sticks and getting the whole of the Ballroom dancing.

I stayed in the Electric Ballroom for Plan B. I liked his lyrics (A very lazy comparison would be The Streets and as I'm lazy the lyrics are like a twisted version of Mike Skinner's world) but the music was just bland a busker style acoustic drone. By this point I want to try and get to The Dublin Castle to see Supergrass but I know there is no chance of getting in so decide to stay put to see Dirty Pretty Things all the kids know the words and it all sounds like early Libertines to me, which isn't a bad thing just not really groundbreaking.

So 3 venues on this years crawl which beats the 2 I went to last year.