Watching THE CRIBS play on Wednesday was a distinctly underwhelming experience. They shambled on stage (late) looking dishevelled and distinctly out of it and kicked into a mediocre rendition of ‘Hey Seamsters’ without even a ‘hello we’re The Cribs.’
It soon became apparent that what appeared to be badly applied lipstick on the mouth of singer/ guitarist Ryan was in fact blood which then started to spread around his face and down his neck and the gig just went downhill from there. Their music can be best described as rock pop songs- bland and formulaic, following the verse, chorus, verse, guitar solo, and key change pattern but, to give the band their due- the crowd (made up mostly of screaming fourteen year old kids on half term) seemed to love every minute of it.
The Cribs hail from Wakefield and managed to get to number 27 in the charts with their last single by jumping on the Leeds band wagon and touring with The Kaiser Chiefs. Unfortunately this band don’t seem to merit the hype surrounding them as although individual songs- such as their new single ‘Mirror Kissers’ or their cover of The Kaiser Chiefs ‘The Modern Way’ are catchy and easy to listen to, when played live alongside the rest of the group's material, all their songs merged into one and it became difficult to know where one tune ended and the next began.
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The band didn’t help matters by largely ignoring the audience apart from at one point where Ryan threw himself into the audience and attempted to crowd surf only to be dragged back onstage by an irate bouncer.
On the plus side though, the set only lasted 30 minutes and ended by the band declaring ‘We’re too cool to do an encore so there’s not going to be one’ and cheers from the audience. There again, it was hard to decide if these were cheers of appreciation or cries of relief that the gig was over – personally I’d like to think it was the latter.
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