Los Campesinos!, Lovvers, Simone White, Bombay Bicycle Club, Sam Sparro - Camden Crawl Day One, Various Camden Venues, London - Friday 18th April 2008

The first day of the Camden Crawl, an event which proved to be great fun over 2 days last year. This time, the lineup was a little disappointing, with a complete lack of a big lineup announcement a couple of weeks beforehand (last year there was such an announcement, including Ash, Travis and Amy Winehouse). In fact, the organisers weren't very good at communicating much at all, being the owners of one of the least useful and informative websites in the world. But then, if you haven't got many bands to announce, I guess you don't have much to say. The Fratellis were the main headliner on the first day, thankfully diverting 1,000 or so of the less adventurous Crawlers into Koko for the evening.

Anyway, after some quality time in the pub, including watching The Cocknbullkid soundchecking in the Cuban Bar, we braved the queue for the Electric Ballroom, one of the venues that opened up slightly earlier than the others. Most of the Crawl seemed to be in there to see Sam Sparro, who had achieved some chart success in recent weeks, and was apparently also playing his debut UK gig. So, the venue was rammed, although I must admit that most of the Sam Sparro hype had passed me by. He came on stage to a rapturous reception, and played a set that was very well received. But, it wasn't really my cup of tea - he reminded me of Calvin Harris, but not as good, without many decent songs. He also seemed like a bit of a tosser when he spoke in between songs - he will probably be really commercially successful though, so I think we will probably be seeing a lot more of him.

After Sam Sparro finished, there was a virtual stampede out of the venue - which made all of the leavers complete idiots, as they missed the excellent Bombay Bicycle Club. Once again they played a fantastic, high energy set, with loads of really catchy indie pop songs. Along with Cajun Dance Party, they are bringing back classic indie music! I really enjoyed the set, and stood there at several points wondering to myself why they are not getting all of the recognition they deserve - they should be one of the hottest and most popular new bands in the country right now. They keep a fairly low profile by not playing live all that often, but they have the tunes and especially the stage presence to be huge one day - hopefully it will happen, because more people should be into this band.

After the BBC set, I left the Electric Ballroom and headed for the Enterprise. The gig room there is just a tiny room above a pub, in fact where I saw the Belgrave Scandal for the first time. I didn't know when I headed there, that the gig was to be special for a few reasons. When I arrived, a solo folk singer called Simone White was playing - she sounded decent enough, and is actually a bit famous - her song The Beep Beep Song is used in the Audi car advert. The show was good, but obviously very downbeat and quiet, which was not exactly what I was looking for in the middle of an event like the Camden Crawl, especially given the other bands I was watching.

After Simone White left the stage, a band called Lovvers then appeared, introduced by the pub landlord. They were the total and complete opposite of Simone White, being a very rowdy 3-chord punk band, whose singer (who sadly looked like Donny Tourette) spent most of his time in the crowd, or rolling around on stage. Their songs were very fast, very loud, and the audience seemed to be watching bemused as the singer went completely ballistic. Interesting to watch, but their music was not all that good, I have to say.

The reason I went to the Enterprise in the first place was to see the evening's headliners there, the excellent Los Campesinos!. Given that they have 7 members, I was slightly intrigued as to how they would all fit onto the venue's very small stage, but they seemed to just about manage it. They were again introduced by the landlord, and kicked off what was to be an absolutely incredible 45 minutes.

The gig kicked off with one punky pop song after another, and the venue was so rammed full that the entire room was the moshpit. In fact, it was pretty impossible to move anywhere, the room was incredibly hot, and there was beer flying around all over the place. As the songs kept coming and the crowd got more into it, the gig was shaping up to be a really good one. The band sounded amazing live, much better than on their album (which is pretty good itself), and the show was mental. So mental in fact that the floor was bouncing up and down, literally. And I don't mean that it was moving a little bit, it was more like being on a bouncy castle - to the point that you really did think it would collapse if the show kept going the way it was.

So, after about 4 songs, bouncers came on stage to ask people to calm down a bit. One minute into the next song, it was obvious that the plea had had no effect, the floor was still bouncing, and apparently the punters in the pub below were being treated to the sight of plaster cracking off the ceiling. The landlord appeared and explained the problem, the floor was literally going to cave in. The band pleaded with people to calm down. So the audience sat down, in the middle of the floor, and waited for the band to carry on.

This was a pretty surreal sight, being stood against the wall at the back of the room, watching everybody in the venue sitting down on the floor. Obviously there was no space, so people were using literally every available inch. But, the crowd stayed sitting down, and the band played the rest of a very lively punk pop set, with everybody rooted to the floor. Completely counter intuitive, because all Los Campesinos! make you want to do is get up, dance, and go mad. But there we go. At one point, the band all sat down too, to play a couple of songs - and whilst that was happening, a crowd surfer went over the top of the seated crowd.

All in all, this was an incredible and totally unique gig from Los Campesinos! - something you just never expect to see. The songs were fantastic, the band are brilliant live, and it was great to see them in such a tiny venue, with a bunch of people that clearly loved the band so much. This was an absolute privilege to have been at - really one of those gigs I'll remember forever.