Musical Memories, number 3 - On stage with The Cribs

The Cribs are an unbelievably good live band. However, while they are still a joy to watch four albums into their career, if you didn't see them during the days when they played teeny tiny venues then you really, really missed out. You know the kind of place: a pub backroom where the only reason you know where the stage starts is because it is ever so slightly raised. Well, this band from Leeds used to rip the roof off places like that. I saw them plenty of times in these days, but the one occasion that stands out was in London's Soho, just before the release of their second album.

Often, when bands play new songs it can be something of a trial, as these unknown tunes simply serve to get in the way of the hits. However, such amazing songwriters are the Jarman brothers and so infectious are their songs that, by the second chorus of these previously unheard gems, the Soho crowd were singing along as if they'd heard them a thousand times before, rather than for the first time through a dodgy sound system in a Soho side-street.

Back in these days The Cribs used to be advocates of the stage invasion. Keen to break down the barriers between band and audience, they would positively encourage people to come and cause a bit of anarchy as they closed their set. So, that's how, as The Wrong Way To Be belted out, I found myself jumping around onstage behind singer/bassist Gary as one of the best live bands in the world sent the uber cool Soho crowd nuts (see above picture). You could say I was, momentarily, in The Cribs. You'd be lying, of course, as in reality I was just a loser prancing around the stage and making a bit of an arse of himself, but it was still quite the feeling.

Now, see if you can find me in the below picture, taken at the same gig. It's like an indie version of Where's Wally? Clue, just look for the most ridiculously excited person in the room. Yep, there I am.

Words by Rob Townsend