Now this was a far more rambunctious show than I'd anticipated. With Sean Na Na opening and nearly done their set when I arrived, I nonetheless was there in time to see them bring out The Cribs for a massive sing along.

















Now the Cribs are a mere three-piece - this is a combination that can sometimes leave a stage feeling a bit empty. After an interview in which the two members I spoke with, Gary and Ryan Jarman(first names used because the three guys are brothers - it could get a bit confusing with the surname), showcased a standard British sort of disaffected seriousness in tone and mannerisms (if not necessarily in what they actually are saying), I wasn't expecting too much in terms of a stage show. Well colour me wrong wrong wrong. These guys were positively manic. From my lofty perch above the stage, drummer Ross was actually the most prolific in terms of presence, which is of course a strange thing for the drummer who is always at the back of the stage. But he made himself known well through frequent stand-ups on his drum stool (a precarious position indeed), lots of arms in the air, and plenty of throwing-down of cymbals and tambourines. The stage techs were kept busy replacing things that had been tossed, shoved, or bowled over by the band.













The audience was no crop of angels either. Leaping and moshing, sneaking onto the stage to hurl themselves up to crowdsurf, trying to move or unplug monitors, vying for attention, and especially the gaggle of Irish girls who kept screaming their town name at the band in some misguided attempt at unity, who danced far too vigorously for their tube tops, and who tried to use unwilling audience members as stepping stones to the stage (resulting in nasty glares from the stepped-on, resulting in grade-schoolesque hair pulling and giggling from the steppers. Can't we all just get along?). By the end of the show though, Ryan had been erstwhile bitten by the obnoxious audience bug and tossed himself out onto the crowd for a go-about before landing himself back on the stage, grabbing up his abandoned guitar and rubbing it back and forth across an amp a few times. Ryan and Gary both spend a surprising amount of time facing the back of the stage, cajoling with Ross and kicking/dancing/spinning themselves about. They take note of the crowd's dizzying rapture over them, embracing it by encouraging still more yells and holler. I'll be damned if I could understand a word they said between songs all night - a condition that resulted from a combination of standing behind most of the speakers, and of these guys' thick accents and deadpan voices. Musically, they are hip and the band sounds full even with just the three instruments. Brilliant fun!













And in one of the grandest cocky moves I may have ever seen... the band did not perform an encore. They decided when the show ended, and that was that, off they went!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : July, 2007.