The Cribs

The Assembly in Leamington was the latest stop on The Cribs current nationwide tour, which has sold out at almost every venue. The band has been through a bit of a transitional phase lately, with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr joining the Jarman brothers for their recent fourth album. But with Ignore the Ignorant reaching number 8 in the album chart and their tour selling out at almost every venue, The Cribs are back in the big time. Four albums is quite an impressive number for a modern indie band and their latest is their strongest yet, particularly the opening four songs.

In an age when many bands fade away after their first album, a music age which Ryan Jarman himself called “rubbish” in 2007, The Cribs have got better and matured with each one. Marr has added some class and quality to the rugged lads from Wakefield and his big-name addition is certainly one reason for the excitement surrounding the band at the moment.

I arrived at the Assembly, my first time at this cosy but impressive venue, as support act Adam Green was playing in front of the already packed audience. I don’t know much about him except that he’s American and dances like a madman but he gets my respect just for crowd-surfing twice (how often can a support act do that?) and he certainly seemed popular.

After a relatively short wait, The Cribs walk on to some rousing classical music, an unusual but good way to walk onto stage, and open their 19-song set predictably with the awesome first song on the new album, ‘We Were Aborted’, which apparently is a criticism of “lads’ mags”. It’s one of the songs where Marr’s guitaring is most noticeable and it throws the crowd at the front immediately into frenzy. ‘Hey Scenesters’ keeps up the momentum before ‘I’m A Realist’, a slower song but one of the band’s best. Lead-singer Ryan and Marr playing side-by-side is the image that I’ll most remember from the gig but the Jarman brothers aren’t ones to talk to the crowd much, preferring to concentrate on their music, although he does complement Leamington and condones crowd-surfing. As Ryan says himself at one point, the band has always been about their live performances and not the commercial side. The rest of the performance sees most of the new album mixed up with various songs from their previous three, including ‘Another Number’ and ‘Direction’ from their self-titled first, and the thoughtful ‘Be Safe’ from the third, which involves a video of Lee Ranaldo’s vocals being shown. Fans’ favourite ‘Men’s Needs’ is the penultimate song before their wonderful and well-selected set ends with the atmospheric ‘City of Bugs’, one of the highlights of the new album. The perfect end to a brilliant gig.