HEY SCENESTERS, DON'T YOU WANNA BE RELEVANT? THE CRIBS AT MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG

Here is my second review I wrote for the NYC live music blog Almack's Dance Hall

The Cribs hold a very special place in my heart. They were the first band I ever saw live way back when I was just a wee Catholic schoolgirl. They were opening for Franz Ferdinand and Death Cab For Cutie in May 2006. This was a period in my life when I had just recently started down the road to musical obsession and this concert was sort of like my induction to the British Indie Fan Club. To this day, they remain one of the only bands I have seen live and instantly fallen in love with without ever having heard any of their music. Last night when I saw them at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, it was like the experience I had two years ago, but like times a million.
I attended the concert with my friend Lauren who I met (non-creepily) on Facebook when we both realized that we lived close to each other and we were madly in love with the Libertines. So I knew that the concert was going to be a blast based solely on that factor. Sadly, our adventure was almost cut short when I rolled up to the box office window and asked for tickets, only to me met with a confused stare. “Uh, its sold out,” said the girl behind the glass. I calmly turned away from the window and contemplated how I was going to get myself out of this one. Luckily, good Samaritan #1 of the night came up to us and was like “Do you guys need tickets?” and we said, “UM YES PLZ” and he sold them to us for original price! Happy days.
When we made our way up to the venue area we found that we had already missed Drug Rug and the second act Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters was already halfway through their set. At first I was kind of skeptical because it seemed as though they were trying to play punk music but with acoustic guitars and tambourines. But then Jeffrey Lewis sang an a cappella ode to ramen noodles and how they are essential to the culture of the poets and artists of the village. Then they sang a song while projecting a picture narration on the screen about how Jeffrey Lewis used to be a hippie, and now he’s just a regular looking guy. Then they did a ten minute spoken word/cover medley that followed the history of punk in NYC from 1954 through 1975 which included covers of The Velvet Underground and The Stooges. And then I wanted to explode with happiness. They had this air about them like they knew they were simultaneously effortlessly cool and trying really hard to please the crowd but secretly k
new the crowd was going to love them all along. After that lovely jam-fest, Lauren and I promptly began weaving our way through the crowd to get an optimal vantage point. As we got closer to the stage, we realized we had some rough competition. Apparently many girls want Ryan (or Gary, or Olly) in bed with them. These girls, who had clearly been waiting since like 7 and did not take kindly to us trying to nudge our way to the front. But seriously, its a concert people, and its every woman for herself so get over it. But being the fierce tranny messes that we are, we weren’t going to back down easily. Despite the extremely dirty looks we were getting, it didn’t seem like they were going to attack us with their claws (yet), so we settled into our spot about two feet from the stage and waited impatiently for what seemed an eternity. Then the boys came out in typical Cribs fashion, clothes on the verge of falling off and already slopping beer all over themselves. They started off
with “Don’t You Want To Be Relevant?”. This made me remember that I totally love the way Ryan Jarman does his vocals. I mean God knows I can’t decipher the words spewing out of his mouth, but he sings like a fan singing along with his favorite band, and that is something I just can’t get enough of. At the beginning of the next song “Our Bovine Public” someone threw a cup of beer from behind me and most of it landed on my head. That was the cue for things to take a turn for the crazier. First of all, the girl (who already had it in for me) had clearly never attended a real concert before. She seemed to think that there was an invisible force field around her that prevented her from having to bump shoulders with people. When the crowd heaved forward, which we all know is a common occurrence at concerts, she must have though it was me who was putting all of that force onto her back, which caused her repeatedly elbow me in the stomach. Which made me purposely ram into her from
behind, which resulted in her kicking me in the shins. Which made me feel like I was in fourth grade. But these trivial matters could not distract me from the epic figure of Ryan Jarman right in front of my eyes. He was wearing a tattered striped t-shirt and skinny jeans with no shoes on. Perhaps he didn’t wear shoes so the people in the front could see that his toenails were painted a lovely red hue. Reason #243 I love The Cribs. The show continued on at a manic pace, with Ryan and Gary slurring things that didn’t sound like English before launching into song after song. People were crowd surfing like crazy and one guy even made it up on stage. This might have been the craziest show crowd-wise that I’ve ever been to. Everyone was just screaming along to every wah-oh-oh like they were going to die tomorrow, and elbows and arms were flying with reckless abandon. They played my favorite song Mirror Kissers from their sophomore album The New Fellas which made my heart burst with
joy. I thought my vocal chords were going to rip I was screaming so loud. Near the end of the set, Ryan jumped into the crowd and his leg landed on my hand. Somehow the force of the crowd pulled me over onto the ground and I was certain I was going to die from be trampled by hipsters. Who are heavier than they look. But then good Samaritan #2 of the night threw his body over me and said that he was saving me. Which was a good thing. Because I didn’t want to die. After that fiasco, I resumed my fist pumping dance extravaganza. At the end of "Ancient History", Ryan started grating is guitar on the amp just like I remember him doing when I saw him two years ago. And something about seeing him do that again caused some kind of cosmic resonance that made my spirit tremble with epic-ness. As if this weren’t enough, fucking LEE RENALDO from Sonic Youth gets onstage to perform his featured part on “Be Safe” from The Cribs’ latest album. And just like that it was over. No encore, no
nothing. But that couldn’t damper our exhilarated spirits as we made our way over to the Annex for the after party where we proceeded to dance and DJ the night away. Sometimes I love my life. This was one of those nights.

Again I was having camera problems. Namely, I didn’t have one. So I had to use my phone. Here is a bad picture of Ryan:



And a good picture of the setlist: