Camden Crawl 2008 Live Review @ Camden Crawl - Misc. Venues (London) - 18 Apr 2008
Camden Crawl
Live Review
For the third edition of what has now established itself as the best London urban festival, the Camden Crawl offered a wide range of comedy, film and art.
But obviously, the Crawl mainly appealed to those (15, 000) out there on a music binge.
And on that front, festivities started from Friday afternoon, bumping into French marvel Soko, who was showcasing her pleasantly quirky pop songs, about feeling fat and ugly and being dumped, at Bar Vinyl in front of a 30-strong audience in awe of the fairy-like songstress.
Later that day, the Cuban bar hosted a rock chick with a twist in Anita Blay aka The Cocknbullkid, who managed to have over a hundred indie kids bounce and groove to her Princesque pop rock.
The same venue saw friendly grime A-listers Wiley (in replacement of Lightspeed Champion, who had stepped down “due to illness”) and JME spread the love, teach the crowd a few steps and even share champagne with the lucky few at the front.
Generally speaking, the Crawl was host to all acts great and girly, with the exception of the anecdotic Agaskodo Teliverek (imagine one of Gogol Bordello’s backing singers taking the lead thinking they were Nina Hagen…) at the Black Cap on Friday; from Kiwi Ladyhawke [appropriately announced as “one for the dancers”]’s contagiously engaging electro-rock at the Cuban Bar, to all-girl NYC combo Effi Briest at Underworld making their best impression of Kate Bush’ s rendition of Pink Floyd’s greatest hits.
Saturday’s cherry on the cake was undeniably Norwegian wonder Ida Maria at Dingwalls who (rightfully raved-about left, right and centre) did keep to her promises, encouraged by a squeezed-in crowd all ears for her punchy guts. She closed her set with the now anthemic “Oh My God”, followed by a (no-choice) standing ovation.
The Crawl being what it’s become (that is the place where everyone wants to be), and the queues proving ever-so hard to beat with the best will in the world, I nearly missed out on Natty’s sing-along folk reggae at the Dublin Castle on Friday, and was politely turned away from Does It Offend You, Yeah?’s set at NW1 on Saturday.
Final say to all of you who may be tempted for next year: let alone the fact that hectically walking up and down Camden High IS the best workout ever, the Crawl adds on to the list of things to do at least once in your lifetime.
