Nail The Cross
Various Venues, New Cross
Saturday 27th September 2008
Pub crawls are a peculiar tradition that involve large groups of people walking, swaggering, swaying, staggering and finally falling from bar to bar, with the manner of transport correlating to the level of drunkenness. Nail The Cross is pretty much this, with added bands. What starts of as a rather well turned out crowd listening to rock music of the utmost calibre slowly turns into average night out fare, then becomes interestingly weird, before ending up a rather glorious mess. This, though not really a festival, makes for a decent night out. Maybe more pub crawls should be like it.
Upon arrival at New Cross' hallowed high street, The Hobgoblin is the first port of call and is alive with youthful activity, gig-goers spilling into the canopied garden to pick up passes and strangers, glasses toppling off tables already. A swift turn around the corner and the renowned Goldsmiths Student Union is filling with eager-eyed youngsters – it is the end of Fresher's Week here – awaiting the Archie Bronson Outfit's much-travelled rock fare. Despite being quite a modest crowd for one of the festival's biggest acts, the band brings the evening to an early peak it never quite repeats. This isn't a criticism, the Archie Bronson Outfit just happen to put in a stunning shift, looking utterly out of place in lumberjack shirts, exuding bearded gruffness. Songs crash past, their southern rock aided by the exploits of their particularly dishevelled looking one-man sax section, who plays two instruments at once to summon an eerily epic tone. Cherry Lips is loud and wonderfully coarse, but it’s the almost-cheap progression of Dart For My Sweetheart that is truly memorable. Left to brew until the chorus, counting verses build with internal rhyme, while a nagging riff underpins it all. It sounds simply huge in the shapeless confines of a student bar, keeping people away from the dirt cheap drinks for a full five minutes.
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Clinic are up next, with their patented juxtaposition of serious musical exploration and cheesy dress-up draw childishness. Arriving onstage in trademark surgical masks, with matching Hawaii shirts more worthy of mockery than mystique, there's a lot not to like on first look. Luckily, they're an accomplished act who effortlessly switch between sub-genres, with clever chord changes leaving them as adept at delivering keys-driven mid-tempo as high-voltage marauding. Monkey Off My Back is a stomping centre to the set, and despite sometimes veering dangerously close to band-playing-in-the-background-in-an-OC-scene territory, they're worthy headliners. The nature of these one-nighters means that everyone is off elsewhere before they even leave the stage, with many skipping across to the Walpole Arms for Jay Jay Pistolet's acoustic set. The loveable muddle these affairs can be is illustrated as he's just finishing upon arrival, the schedule planner being about as accurate as its spelling of Conor Oberst (Osbert). However, the affable atmosphere prevails as the Amersham Arms is a hop across the road and Micachu & The Shapes are on.
Looking like they could only ever exist in London, Micachu loiters behind the mic, attitude and cheeky contempt fortifying her position of control. Their brand of quirky laptop-laden indie is well-received, the crowd taking note of the venue's motto to be "quiet during the quiet bits and loud during the loud bits". It's too one-dimensional after a while, despite some maverick drumming and Micachu's inevitable summoning of a hoover. As the DJs, more of a state than most, begin spinning Mark Morrison, the band aren't done. Playing one more song, Micachu sticks the vacuum to her face, distorts the mic and gets the desired reaction of intrigue and enthusiasm, despite the cleaning instrument having very little musical effect.
Speaking of which, CocknBull Kid are on next. Exciting in appearance and stage presence, their music drifts past without doing very much. On record, spiky arrangements and biting lyrics stand out, but live both are lost and unless glancing towards the stage it may as well be DJs back on. It is pretty quickly, with the place seemingly busier now the bands are finished and certainly livelier. Casper C continues in the Amersham, but such is the nature of these festival crawls, a shamble back to Goldsmiths for the Count, him of many monikers, is called for as he spins until the even earlier hours. There's a fair few people preferring this to any guitar-based offerings the evening has offered, though it's questionable if many more can hear by now. There's a variety to the night and venues that allows attendees to dip into everything, but it never completely satisfies on any front. The novelty of these events has certainly worn off and outstanding line-ups are required to make them more than trips to the pub with entertainment laid on. Still, it's another admirable attempt and is well-executed enough to survive the winter. For the majority though, it's back to the non-band bar crawls until next year.
Various Venues, New Cross
Saturday 27th September 2008
Pub crawls are a peculiar tradition that involve large groups of people walking, swaggering, swaying, staggering and finally falling from bar to bar, with the manner of transport correlating to the level of drunkenness. Nail The Cross is pretty much this, with added bands. What starts of as a rather well turned out crowd listening to rock music of the utmost calibre slowly turns into average night out fare, then becomes interestingly weird, before ending up a rather glorious mess. This, though not really a festival, makes for a decent night out. Maybe more pub crawls should be like it.
Upon arrival at New Cross' hallowed high street, The Hobgoblin is the first port of call and is alive with youthful activity, gig-goers spilling into the canopied garden to pick up passes and strangers, glasses toppling off tables already. A swift turn around the corner and the renowned Goldsmiths Student Union is filling with eager-eyed youngsters – it is the end of Fresher's Week here – awaiting the Archie Bronson Outfit's much-travelled rock fare. Despite being quite a modest crowd for one of the festival's biggest acts, the band brings the evening to an early peak it never quite repeats. This isn't a criticism, the Archie Bronson Outfit just happen to put in a stunning shift, looking utterly out of place in lumberjack shirts, exuding bearded gruffness. Songs crash past, their southern rock aided by the exploits of their particularly dishevelled looking one-man sax section, who plays two instruments at once to summon an eerily epic tone. Cherry Lips is loud and wonderfully coarse, but it’s the almost-cheap progression of Dart For My Sweetheart that is truly memorable. Left to brew until the chorus, counting verses build with internal rhyme, while a nagging riff underpins it all. It sounds simply huge in the shapeless confines of a student bar, keeping people away from the dirt cheap drinks for a full five minutes.
.jpg)
Clinic are up next, with their patented juxtaposition of serious musical exploration and cheesy dress-up draw childishness. Arriving onstage in trademark surgical masks, with matching Hawaii shirts more worthy of mockery than mystique, there's a lot not to like on first look. Luckily, they're an accomplished act who effortlessly switch between sub-genres, with clever chord changes leaving them as adept at delivering keys-driven mid-tempo as high-voltage marauding. Monkey Off My Back is a stomping centre to the set, and despite sometimes veering dangerously close to band-playing-in-the-background-in-an-OC-scene territory, they're worthy headliners. The nature of these one-nighters means that everyone is off elsewhere before they even leave the stage, with many skipping across to the Walpole Arms for Jay Jay Pistolet's acoustic set. The loveable muddle these affairs can be is illustrated as he's just finishing upon arrival, the schedule planner being about as accurate as its spelling of Conor Oberst (Osbert). However, the affable atmosphere prevails as the Amersham Arms is a hop across the road and Micachu & The Shapes are on.
Looking like they could only ever exist in London, Micachu loiters behind the mic, attitude and cheeky contempt fortifying her position of control. Their brand of quirky laptop-laden indie is well-received, the crowd taking note of the venue's motto to be "quiet during the quiet bits and loud during the loud bits". It's too one-dimensional after a while, despite some maverick drumming and Micachu's inevitable summoning of a hoover. As the DJs, more of a state than most, begin spinning Mark Morrison, the band aren't done. Playing one more song, Micachu sticks the vacuum to her face, distorts the mic and gets the desired reaction of intrigue and enthusiasm, despite the cleaning instrument having very little musical effect.
Speaking of which, CocknBull Kid are on next. Exciting in appearance and stage presence, their music drifts past without doing very much. On record, spiky arrangements and biting lyrics stand out, but live both are lost and unless glancing towards the stage it may as well be DJs back on. It is pretty quickly, with the place seemingly busier now the bands are finished and certainly livelier. Casper C continues in the Amersham, but such is the nature of these festival crawls, a shamble back to Goldsmiths for the Count, him of many monikers, is called for as he spins until the even earlier hours. There's a fair few people preferring this to any guitar-based offerings the evening has offered, though it's questionable if many more can hear by now. There's a variety to the night and venues that allows attendees to dip into everything, but it never completely satisfies on any front. The novelty of these events has certainly worn off and outstanding line-ups are required to make them more than trips to the pub with entertainment laid on. Still, it's another admirable attempt and is well-executed enough to survive the winter. For the majority though, it's back to the non-band bar crawls until next year.
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