(The Camden Crawl In Pictures: HERE)

Boo! A review! Bet that scared ya.

Anyway, I hope all you losers out there appreciate how scuzzed up I am while writing this. Truth be told I only this minute got back into Peterborough *cheers* (feeling the quality!) but I am already writing despite the noise in my head, i.e. my bed calling me, but if I go to sleep (which is like so overrated anyway) I’ll probably wake up a year later or something and forget like everything. Now that’s random! So I’m thinking (happens sometimes) that this surely signifies some sort of breakthrough on my part! Welcome to the new improved, reliable me. Long may she reign.

So Camden discuss? Well for starters anyone who was lucky enough to join in on all the fun will doubtlessly be thinking that they should change the name of the festival to the Camden Cruel. I mean call me stupid, actually don’t, but in what way was it a crawl. A crawl surely signifies a leisurely pace. A pace perhaps similar to what you would experience on pub crawl, (no doubt due to alcohol intoxication) but alas there was no leisurely paces (or should that be places, hum….?) to be had. It was all rushing here rushing there, what’s the name of that venue again, what time does this band finish and when does the other one start. Can I really walk the entire length of Camden in minus 10 minutes and even if I can, can I be arsed to queue, and if I do queue and my nipples freeze off will we still miss the band and blah, blah, blah and where exactly is the purple monkey anyway? These being our main bugbears but there were others, and geez (a bit off the point but) what the hell is a bugbear or did I just invent a new word? Perhaps it’s related to a purple turtle?

However, we were at least a little prepared for our night out on London Town. Preparedness, luckily for us is at least something that we are good at. So, while chewing the fat back at our 5* cell block accommodation, we decided who we were going to see in between passing comments as to when the immaculate conception occurred and when the second coming was due. Sorry, I digress into sheer madness!

So POA in hand and flyers also in hand and dolled up to the max we set out to invade Camden. The first band we saw being Do Me Bad Things at KoKo, who funnily enough I wouldn’t mind doing some bad things to, especially the lead singer, but nice bad things if you know what I mean. Definitely very different to anything else out there and the constant costume changes made things interesting.

Tearing ourselves away we rushed over to the Purple Turtle to catch the Ludes and to determine whether there music lived up to the hype or whether they were just a case of four expensive haircuts playing guitars, with an overtone of style over substance. Well, for one thing the singer certainly had the what I am beginning to believe is the almost mandatory arrogance associated with rock stardom coupled with a stage stagger that even Mick Jagger would be proud of although funnily enough he spent about as much time in the crowd as on the stage preferring to scare the crowd as much as possible. They were good but reminded me a little too much of The Jam who I really admire but I like something a little different to get my teeth into. Plus apparently later he had a huge argument with his girlfriend in the middle of the venue which is just plain nastiness.

From nastiness onto gorgeousness. Quite recovered from a chatting up session by a group of men in their 70s in suits in a kebab shop. We kid you not. We have photographic evidence and not even we could make this shit up, we prepared ourselves for the beautiful spectacle of The Glitterati. In my completely biased opinion (it’s a new hOOchy* obsession) they were the best band of the night on par with Graham Coxon (ok perhaps not quite, but he’s a legend). They played all our faves like Heartbreaker, Back in Power and You Need You although probably not in that order as I was a bit drunk at that stage, looking so yummy that I thought I could eat them. I now need time to pause and appreciate………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Our hOOchy* powers of blag were put ot the test next. We got chatting to some people on the way to Graham Coxon who couldn’t get in despite having press passes. Feeling somewhat discouraged we however tried to blag our way in despite long queues with some complete strangers who said they knew the owner. It worked - result! We bypassed the queues and got straight in whilst loads of people queued in vain!.....I now need to find a pin to pop my inflated ego! A smile goes a long way, and this episode somewhat restored my faith in Londoners. We now had a prime spot in a gig that we shouldn’t have even got into! Watching Graham Coxon in such a small venue like The Dublin Castle was one of the best gig experiences ever. The atmosphere was so cosy and the music was mindblowing. Graham looking hot and we had the perfect spot for perving. We really couldn’t believe our luck! He played a range of songs off his new album including my fave ‘Spectacular’, and we were pleased as punch.

To round off the evening we indulged in what surely has to be the ultimate anticlimax that goes hand in hand with a festival the much raved and nearly always overrated aftershow party. The one that we went to was in a bar called the Atlantic or was it the Atlantis? Anyway it was The Hell is for Heroes aftershow party and we blagged it vis a vis friend of a friend like and now I fully understand why rockstars are notorious drug takers. It is my strong belief that you have to take drugs to enjoy these type of gatherings or alternatively be an expert in the subtle art of schmooze. Not only was the music terrible but I had to put up with some gangster from Weapons of Mass Belief (perhaps they should change their name to weapons of mass destruction or better weapons of mass disgusting)! trying to put his hands down my trousers and telling me I had to dance with him because it would make me better in bed! I felt like telling him that there was fat chance of him ever finding out whether that was infact true and besides I was on a no sex streak that had lasted more than 100 days and I was kinda proud of. Talk about self control. I deserve some type or award or perhaps I will add it to My National Record of Achievement which has been useful for no other purpose..

Rocking or Shocking?
Rocking. 4/5. A Rocking Cruel Crawl

The Camden Crawl In Pictures: HERE