Camden
Crawl 2006
Dirty Pretty Things, Plan B, Shit Disco, Humanzi, Good Books + The Aliens
20.04.06 - Camden, obviously
“Let the fun begin!” I thought after picking up my wristband and venturing up to the Purple Turtle to see The Aliens. “Wow, it’s packed! Maybe they’ll live up to NME’s hyperbole after all”, I mused internally. Hhhmmm… For a band featuring ex-Beta Band members, once the bastion of cool, quirky originality, the first thing that strikes you is how ordinary they look. Gordon Anderson AKA ‘Lone Pigeon’ takes centre stage, messy of hair and messier of demeanour and the other members do little to stop the phrase “dole queue on smack” from entering my thoughts. The songs are disappointingly ordinary too. Less inventive than one would have hoped, they plod out a kind of driving, monotonous jam that even John Maclean’s synths and samplers can’t save from sounding yawn-inducingly retro. When the ‘singer’ starts dancing like a drunken tramp and arrogantly forces everyone else to stop playing so he can sing unaccompanied, we make our excuses and leave. Besides, we’ve got a crawl to do!
And what a hike it is all the way over to Bullet to see Good Books. Thankfully we are rewarded for our efforts by actually being able to get into the venue (a lot of venues already have queues by this time) and, more crucially, by witnessing the performance of the night. I must admit I wasn’t bowled over by their debut single ‘Walk With Me’, and being branded “Best New Band In The Country” by the NME can only ever create scepticism, but from the word go, this band oozes class. Look past the teen-geek hair, the dodgy attire and 8-year-old’s face – frontman Max Cooke is a star in waiting. With a confidence that belies their youth, Cooke leads the band through a 40-minute set that pulls off that brilliant trick of referencing all the best bands of the last 40 years, without sounding indebted to any of them. Mystery Jets for people who run a mile at the mention of the word ‘prog’? Maybe, but ‘pop perfection’ is a simpler description and infinitely more accurate. Will. Be. Huge.
Well, who could possibly follow that we wonder as we stagger back to the centre of Camden. Certainly not Humanzi I’m afraid, being as they are a stodgy version of XTRMNTR-era Primal Scream, without the compelling unpredictability. ‘Fix The Cracks’ has a certain potency to it on record but the first couple of songs here are average at best so why stay? The genius of this event is clearly in evidence when you can leave a band you’ve gambled badly on to seek out undiscovered treasures elsewhere… capacity permitting that is. We play safe with the 2nd biggest venue on offer and stroll straight into the Electric Ballroom for the end of Shit Disco. Re-christened ‘Ssshhh.. Disco’ by Zane, Lammo et al (I personally prefer ‘ish-Disco’ but I digress), they’ve got themselves a good slot here, playing to a virtually full house, no doubt in early for the not-so-secret headliners. The mosh pit lap up their thunderous post-punk and they look like they’re having the time of their lives. A little samey even after 3 songs but they certainly do a nice line in falsetto-enhanced guitar-pop a la early Super Furries. Job done.
It was always going to be a bit of a challenge to win over this crowd with acoustic hip-hop but Ben Drew aka Plan B doesn’t do himself any favours. “Shut the f*ck up y’all, it’s my time now. You f*cking c*nts”, he opines warmly. He is promptly showered with lager by a few of the more sensitive members of the crowd. Not the best of starts then but, unfazed, he continues to spit out his urban tales of sex, drugs and violence and eventually the crowd takes note. The gritty lyrics work well on record but here it’s difficult to pick out the witty wordplay and his Eminem-lite flow is more evident than before. Backed by a bassist and a drummer, ‘No Good’ and ‘Something’s Missing’ still retain their power (even without the Radiohead sample) but doesn’t Mike Skinner do this sort of thing with more humour and subtlety?
Still, the venue is packed to the rafters by this point and everyone’s here to see one band and one band only, Dirty Pretty Things. They stroll on fashionably late, all studied cool, cigarettes hanging delicately out of each of their mouths and they’re, well… alright. A twiddly guitar line here, a nice cod-reggae, Clash-lite riff there and I’m sure after a few more listens I’ll be whistling these tunes along with the postie and the milkman but is this what we need right now? I’m no Doherty fan but at least you couldn’t accuse him of being bland. All they are is just another half-decent rock n roll band which, in my humble opinion, is all the Libertines really were anyway. The crowd goes predictably mental for a version of ‘Death on the Stairs’ but, even this somehow sounds thin and lightweight to these ears.
Still, after 4 hours and 6 bands, je ne regrette rien! Roll on 2007…
Review by David Exley