The Cribs - Liverpool Academy - 25.05.07

Originally published on Twistedear.com

Remember when pop music used to be fun? Roughly 5 years BC (Before Coldplay) when bands didn’t really care whether they were taken seriously and didn’t date models or actresses because they weren’t really handsome or fucked up enough? Those were good days, and The Cribs are slowly dragging them back.

You won’t catch the Jarman brothers campaigning against climate change, or being papped for Heat magazine, but you will find them pumping out riff-led anthems whilst jumping around and sweating, you know, like bands are supposed to. At the Liverpool Academy Ryan Jarman, on vocals and guitar, wears a constant look of confusion, as if he still can’t believe that this happening to him. He sweats like Joan of Arc and bounds about the stage, oblivious to the plastic jewellery and beer dregs that are being flung onto him. The Cribs have risen in the public psyche with TV appearances, festival headline slots and their new album and single going top 20. But to look at them perform you could be fooled into thinking that they’ve only just graduated from booking their own gigs at the local conservative club. The energy, the hunger, the newness – it’s all still there.

The Cribs have always attracted a healthy mix of indie kids and townies - a bit like Oasis they have that duel appeal that stems from bouncy guitar lines meant for pogo-ing and lyrics that sound apt when they’re being yelled at taxi drivers after 12 pints of Stella. The brothers Jarman are also popular with the ladies – Ryan and Gary are twins but there’s a ‘nice’ one and a ‘dirty’ one, and then there’s little brother Ross, ripe for corruption. One love-struck lady feigns an injury and is taken into the backstage corridor for a rest, only to make a run for it when security’s back is turned. When Ryan hurls himself into the pit as customary at the end of the show, his shirt’s torn up within seconds and feminine screams emerge from the melee. It’s just like the golden days of The Osmonds.

Their first album ‘The Cribs’ was recorded somewhere between a shed and an underpass by the sounds of it. It’s lo-tech to the extreme with bits of odd toy-like effects, outtakes and shouting . Somewhere within each two minute classic a chorus and a hook are dumped in, and against all the odds it works. By the time ‘The New Fellas’ came along the hooks were clearer and the songs fully formed. Singles like ‘Mirror Kissers’, ‘Hey Scenesters’ and ‘Martell’ are their true pop classics and these are still the songs that lead to the most screaming and singing along. Most of the crowd could probably play them more accurately aswell but it just wouldn’t be the same. Rather than balking at the hits, the band revel in them, swaggering and smacking away at their instruments saying with every stroke ‘We wrote this!’.

Now onto their third album, produced by Alex Kapranos, The Cribs have polished their recorded sound but retain that no-frills performing style that makes them such a great live prospect. There are bum notes, inadvertent tempo changes and moments when no-one on stage seems to know what’s happening next. The crowd chimes in with ‘der der der doo doo da da’ which signals that they want to hear the three note riff of ‘Another Number’ from ‘The New Fellas’, and the band start it up dutifully, as if they’re glad of the idea. As a member of the audience one feels like they wouldn’t quite know what to do without our cues, it’s a comforting thought, we’re all in this together.

Down in the venue foyer, minus three pints of sweat but with half a dozen new mates the Crib-ettes are still singing twenty minutes after the band have vacated. A girl is lipsticking her phone number on the bus outside. These are a simple but happy bunch, you could do worse than to join them next time round.