Friday, October 26, 2007

Ouch! My Cribs!

The Cribs/Bobby Conn, Carling Academy, Birmingham, Friday October 5 2007, 7.30pm.

Hmm...we're having difficulty relating to The Cribs' audience. Here at Parallax View we're used to rough business, heck in our pugnacious youth we even occasionally started some, but it's the squealing, squabbling and tag-team stampeding up and down the staircases that's leaving your hassled hack yearning for the days when ADHD was just plain cheatin' at scrabble. So seek solace in support act Bobby Conn whose lively set of pseudo-glam stomp is entertaining without providing much in the way of memorable tunage. Instead it's their matching bleached-denim jackets and the female violinist (the delightfully-named Monica BouBou) who seems to have a smile for each and every one of the massed crowd which stick in the mind.

Don't mind admitting that, prior to 2007, Parallax View paid scant attention to Wakefield's The Cribs but triumphant third album 'Mens Needs, Womens Needs, Whatever' shrugged our ambivalence aside with its cocksure combination of catchy tunes, rough charm, US alt. influences and indie insularity sweeping all aside to be our favourite new album of the year at the half-term point. It seems like we've been waiting all our lives for a band to come along and confirm the previously-unspoken truth that the essence of evil is revealed in the continuing worldwide success of Razorlight.

For all their louche demeanour The Cribs put on a pretty tight set, getting on with the business of provoking the crowd to jump up and down as often and as quickly as possible, with 'I'm A Realist'; 'Moving Pictures' and an awesome 'Ancient History' particularly standing out on the night. Towards the end Ryan Jarman moves to the back of the stage, removes his shirt and then takes a huge running jump right over the barricades, launching himself like the loon he is into the moshing masses. Before you can say 'aw, that's gotta hurt!' the security staff are leading his limp, lifeless frame back stage, although somewhat predictably a mere minute later a lazarus-like recovery sees him back on stage for 'Shoot The Poets'. The bad news, then, is that Kate Nash is still taken...

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1 Comments:

Blogger Ben said...

The Cribs are one of those bands whose appeal to those whose opinions and tastes I respect (yours included - most of the time ;)) I just can't understand. Left me pretty much cold at Glastonbury.

7:52 PM  

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