The band's set was again excellent, it seemed slightly longer than the previous evening, and of course it was played to an audience that has heard significantly less of the band. There were some people moving around towards the front, but for the most part, people just seemed to be curious. The band admitted that they had not expected anywhere that many people to show up - but I thought they won the audience over well. By the time You! Me! Dancing! appeared as the penultimate song of the set, there were significant numbers dancing. Hopefully that gig will be a breakthrough for a band that are nothing short of incredible when you see them live.After that show, I headed off to the Underworld, where Rockfeedback and Transgressive were putting bands on. I went to see a band called Elle S'Appelle, a band from Liverpool that I'd heard a decent song by on MySpace. The venue was about half full, and although the band seemed to be musically very good, their songs were a bit hit and miss. I stand by the view that their song Little Flame, which is on their MySpace, is excellent, but many of the rest struggled to live up to the same quality I thought. Some were good, but too many were just forgettable - although maybe I'm being totally unfair, and they were just struggling to live up to the Los Campesinos! set that I'd just seen.
Off to the NW1 bar after their set, for the long haul. Some of the queues were getting crazy even at 7:30, so I decided to pick the best looking gig of the night, and stay in one place, avoiding the queues. Walking past the Earl of Camden, the queue for Sam Sparro again looked ridiculous, but NW1 was altogether a bit easier to get into. The first act I saw there was Thecocknbullkid - whose name wouldn't fit in the title of this post - damn Blogger character limit! We had heard them soundchecking in the Cuban Bar the previous day, so knew what to expect. They were a band with a female singer, who were very tight, and had some pretty decent tunes. It isn't the kind of music that I'd generally choose to listen to, but they put on a very good live show, and watching them was a decent enough way to spend 40 minutes or so.
Next up was/were Sam Isaac, a ginger bloke with a band. He/they is/are signed to Another Music = Another Kitchen records, and that is a decent enough endorsement for any band. I was keen on their single Fire Fire, which turned out to be just one of many highlights of their set. They are fairly easy on the ears, and you might expect that they would be able to get both Radio 1 and Radio 2 airplay. Despite the connotations of bands like Air Traffic and Scouting For Girls that this particular statement throws up, I really enjoyed their set. I can imagine getting sick of them if they get played too much, but they were a really good band, with some excellent songs.
Finally for the Camden Crawl 2008, were Does It Offend You, Yeah. Not really my favourite band, and I had even seen them before, but they do have a very lively live show, which I knew would be completely cranky inside a tiny pub like NW1 - hence the choice to go. In that sense, the band completely lived up to expectation, the bass was ear-splittingly loud, and the whole venue was jumping. At one point, the singer waded through the crowd, climbed up on the bar, and started singing from there - and generally throughout the set, all hell seemed to be breaking loose for most of the time. Going to the toilet after the show, and seeing people with broken noses, means you know you have been at a lively gig. As I said when I saw them last time, I would never listen to their recorded stuff I don't think, but they are capable of an amusing live show, and of course the smaller the venue the better.
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