Crack

Along with the ubiquitous dreary weather and mid winter blues, the month of February always brings the annual NME awards tour, and with it a smorgasbord of new and not so new musical talent.

First up on the bill at Cardiff University’s Great Hall tonight is The Vaccines. The recipients of much hyperbole of late, The Vaccines are the current recipients of British indie music’s next great hope tag. Despite the sea of column inches, The Vaccines early start only attracts a small and largely unresponsive crowd. Their indie by numbers is plodding and lifeless and arguably signifies the distinct lack of anything of much interest emerging from the genre lately. Although a trio of their early singles, Wreckin Bar, If you want too and Post break up sex, towards the end of the set sees some movement from the gathered crowd, I can’t help but think The Vaccines aren’t destined to receive the same adulation from the public as they have from the gushing music press.

After a couple of overpriced, piss-poor lagers in the bar, Crack returns to the main arena for Everything Everything’s set. Begging the question is it pop music gone weird or weird music gone pop? Everything Everything’s performance beckons much more response from the crowd than The Vaccines did. Although low on thrills, their set is engaging throughout with set-closer, Photoshop Handsome receiving a mass sing-along and its fair share of whooping.

Next up is dubstep behemoth, Magnetic Man. Made up of the Croydon big guns, Skream, Benga and Artwork. Magnetic Man are instrumental in dubstep’s transition from the sweat drenched, ketamine fuelled clubs of the past, to its current home, sitting happily in the upper echelons of the top ten. Their set is an effective and precise introduction to the genre for the overexcited teenagers gathered below, but as mosh-pits break out, and polo shirted boys with bulging biceps exchange high fives, I begin to long for the days when dubstep meant a lazy two-step and warm can of Red Stripe.

Headliners Crystal Castles are in some respects the respected elders of the tour, but their high energy, computer bleep shtick which made them such an appealing prospect live in the first place is little changed. Although, beneath the deafening volumes and singer, Alice Glass’s, screaming there are great pop songs, I can’t help but feel a little bit like I’ve seen it all before. The fact that I’d spotted the duo wandering into Queen Streets branch of Marks and Spencer’s earlier in the day certainly hadn’t helped their rock n roll credentials either.

And so, with an omnipresent ringing in my ears, and sweat drenched back, I leave Cardiff University’s Great Hall wondering how Crystal Castles ear drums fair after a month long tour, and how long it will take until The Vaccines become short hand for where are they now jokes. We’ll wait and see.



Words: Sean Griffiths

http://www.myspace.com/thevaccines

http://www.myspace.com/everythingeverythinguk

http://www.myspace.com/magneticman

http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles


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