 |
Camden Crawl was a music festival in Camden, London, which first appeared in 1995 and then was held annually from 2005 to 2014.
| |
Camden Crawl was a music festival in Camden, London, which first appeared in 1995 and then was held annually from 2005 to 2014.
Rather than a single venue, Camden Crawl operated at multiple venues simultaneously, with different acts taking the stage at different venues. [1] This format is sometimes referred to as a "microfestival", a type of event which Time Out 'sGuide to London 2012 described as "a cross between a pub crawl and a music festival" and noted that Camden Crawl had originated. [2] Drowned in Sound magazine called Camden Crawl "[u]ndoubtedly the first festival of its kind in the UK". [3] Venues which hosted the events included The Barfly, Camden Underworld, Dingwalls, Dublin Castle, Electric Ballroom, KOKO, and Proud Gallery. [4] [5] [6]
Unlike genre-specific music festivals, Camden Crawl booked acts from a wide variety of musical styles, including dubstep, folk, indie, new wave, pop, post-punk, punk, rock, shoegaze, and techno. [3] [4] Performers who have participated in Camden Crawl include Adele, Disclosure, Florence + the Machine, Mumford & Sons, and Amy Winehouse. [7] In addition to bands and solo musicians, performers in some years included art historians, comedians, poets, and people with unusual skills such as hula hooping. [8] In some years, the combination of popular musicians and tiny venues led to long lines, fan frustration and the nickname "Camden Queue". [1] [9]
The festival was founded in 1995 by Lisa Paulon and four friends in the recording industry. She characterised the group as "five people who didn't know anything about putting on a gig" at the time the festival was first organised. [7] They worked with "a group of journalists and Camden-based club promoters" to create the first event. [10] Paulson later noted that health and safety regulations regarding decibel levels were unknown to the five founders initially, and conceded that 1995's performances were "a lot noisier than it is now [in 2011]". [7] Some venues were also oversold, resulting in more ticket-holders wanting to see a performance than would fit in the venue where the act was performing. [6]
Camden Crawl continued until 1997, when organisers decided that the event was "too much to manage for something we mostly did for a laugh". [6] After resuming in 2005, Camden Crawl grew into a multi-arts festival. Chris Jakubiak was hired as event organiser [11] and helped expand the festival, which went on to win "Best Metropolitan Festival" at the UK Festival Awards in 2009, 2010, and 2012. [12]
Acts which played the first Camden Crawl included Bis, Blumfeld, Donkey, Gallon Drunk, Joeyfat, Kenickie, Killing Joke, The Lemonheads, Long Fin Killie, Nub, Penthouse, Pure Morning, Quickspace Supersport, Saint Etienne, Scarfo, Spare Snare, Bob Tilton, and The Wedding Present. [7] [9] [13] The first year of the event spanned only five venues: Castlehaven Community Centre, Dingwalls, Dublin Castle, The Laurel Tree, and The Monarch (since renamed The Barfly). [6]
Performers at the second Camden Crawl, which was held on a Thursday night, 19 September, were predominantly from Scotland. Of twenty acts which participated, eight — AC Acoustics, Bis, The Delgados, Eska, Long Fin Killie, Mogwai, Prolapse, and Urusei Yatsura — were Glaswegian or had ties to Glasgow. [6] The remainder of the lineup consisted of The Aloof, Gallon Drunk, Kenickie, Nub, Pure Morning, Quickspace Supersport, Scarfo, Spare Snare, Bob Tilton, and The Wedding Present. [14]
In 1997, for the first time, Camden Crawl expanded to other cities. Again taking place in September, the festival began in Camden on 17 September (a Wednesday), moved to Manchester 18 September, and concluded in Glasgow on 19 September. As a result of the change in format, the festival was rebranded as "Intercity Crawl". Performers that year included Tanya Donelly, Echo & the Bunnymen (at the Electric Ballroom), Headrillaz (at Dingwalls), The High Fidelity (at the Camden Underworld), Mouse on Mars (at the Electric Ballroom), Navigator (at the Camden Underworld), Snow Patrol, The Third Eye Foundation (at The Monarch), Ultrasound, Velocette (at The Monarch), and The Wannadies. [6] [16] This year marked the last Camden Crawl until 2005. [6]
The Glasgow lineup included Tanya Donelly (at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut), The Karelia (at Nice N Sleazy), Lo Fidelity Allstars (at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut), Magoo (at Nice N Sleazy), and Velocette (at The Cathouse). [17]
To mark the tenth anniversary of the first Camden Crawl, organisers resurrected the festival, and the event took place 10 March, a Thursday, with forty acts playing. [18] Performers in 2005 included Buzzcocks, Graham Coxon, The Cribs, Hard-Fi, Hope of the States, Hot Chip, The Kooks, Le Tigre, The Magic Numbers, Maxïmo Park, Mystery Jets, The Subways, and The Wedding Present. [3] [6] The nine participating venues [18] were The Barfly, Camden Underworld, Canaervan Castle, Dublin Castle, Electric Ballroom, KOKO, Lock 17, Oh! Bar, and Purple Turtle. Festival partners who helped curate the selection of performers included Artrocker, Club Fandango, Last.fm, Moshi Moshi Records and the Rough Trade shops. [4] Both lineup and attendance were greater than before the hiatus, and the festival sold out. As a result of the success of the tenth-anniversary Camden Crawl, organisers decided to resume holding the event annually. [6]
Performers at the 2006 Camden Crawl included ¡Forward, Russia!; Futureheads; Guillemots; Klaxons; Lethal Bizzle; Paolo Nutini; Plan B; Supergrass; Dogs, Captain and Sway. [3] [6] The event again sold out. [6]
The 2007 festival spanned two days, 19–20 April, a Thursday and Friday. Non-musical attractions were included in the schedule, such as stand-up comedy shows and quizzes. Amy Winehouse's appearance as one of Camden Crawl's performers drew both crowds and paparazzi. [6] Hadouken! and dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip made their Camden Crawl debuts. [10] Adele also made an appearance — prior to her rise to fame — that year. [3]
Continuing the spring date selection for the festival, 2008's Camden Crawl took place over 18–19 April, an unseasonably warm weekend. Cage the Elephant performed at The Earl of Camden venue; [6] Johnny Foreigner, M83, and Wild Beasts played The Flowerpot; [3] and Lock 17 was another festival venue that year. Florence + the Machine also participated in the event for the first time. [6] A total of 130 acts played at 25 venues during the 2008 festival. [10] Other performers in 2008 included Crystal Castles, Hadouken!, Soko, Sam Sparro and White Lies. [10]
This was the year that Camden Crawl won "Best Metropolitan Festival" at the UK Festival Awards for the first time. [12] It was also the first year the event had BBC Radio 6 Music as an official partner. Participating venues included Dublin Castle, the Enterprise, and, for the first time, Camden's historic Roundhouse theatre. Performers included 808 State, Billy Bragg, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Fall, Idlewild, Kasabian, The Maccabees, The xx, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [3] [6]
2009 also saw an alcohol-free event paralleling the Camden Crawl. Called the Red Bull Bedroom Jam X-Crawl, it took place at four venues and included performances by 25 alternative-music acts. [19]
Camden Crawl won "Best Metropolitan Festival" at the UK Festival Awards for the second consecutive year in 2010. [12] This was the first year there was rainy weather during the festival, which was scheduled to coincide with the UK Bank holiday. At the time of the event, participating performers Pendulum and Plan B had just released chart-topping albums, and participant Professor Green had a single at #1 as well. Teenage Fanclub performed at Camden Crawl for the first time that year. [6] The choir group Gaggle also participated, singing at the Electric Ballroom. [3]
The festival spanned 29 April – 1 May, and featured performances by more than two hundred and fifty acts, [3] including Hodgy Beats; Odd Future; and Tyler, The Creator. [20] It attracted both a younger audience and attendees in middle age in 2011. [9] The more than fifty venues that year included Dublin Castle, The Forum (actually in Kentish Town rather than Camden), The Jazz Cafe, Koko, and the Monarch. [3] [9]
This was the year that Camden Crawl won "Best Metropolitan Festival" at the UK Festival Awards for the third time. [12] The festival took place at venues in Camden during the UK's Bank holiday weekend, 4–6 May, with scheduled performances which included Alabama 3, Gaz Coombes of Supergrass, Death in Vegas, Glasvegas, The Futureheads, and The Raincoats. [21] Among the non-musical performances scheduled as part of the festival that year was a full day of presentations on art history. [22] Other non-concert features at the 2012 Camden Crawl included alternative press, comedians, games, Hip Hop Shakespeare, KaraUke (karaoke combined with ukulele music), spoken word performers, and swing dancing. [23]
In 2012, for the first time, Camden Crawl included a separate set of dates outside the UK — 11–12 May in Dublin, Ireland; Dublin performers included And So I Watch You from Afar, DELS, Le Galaxie, Jape, and We Are Scientists. [24]
The summer leg of the 2013 Camden Crawl took place not in Camden, but in Dublin; the festival returned to Camden venues for a winter leg in October. [25]
Spanning 20–21 June, more than twenty venues, [7] and two hundred acts, 2014's Camden Crawl included performances by Atari Teenage Riot, Au Revoir Simone, Mouse on Mars, Of Montreal, School is Cool, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, and Thumpers. [1]
In July 2014, shortly after the end of that year's Camden Crawl, founder Paulon announced that the festival was "experiencing financial difficulty" and would be placed into voluntary liquidation as it was unable to pay all of its creditors. [7] A statement on the festival website blamed low ticket sales for the shortfall. [7]
Stuart Clarke, an editor with Music Week, was quoted by BBC Radio 1 in 2008 as calling Camden Crawl "an important 'little stepping stone' for" up-and-coming musicians, and noting that performing at the festival was a good indicator that new acts would continue to become better-known. [10] Yannis Philippakis — lead singer of the group Foals, which became successful after playing Camden Crawl when they had been relatively unknown — told BBC Radio 1 that "Camden Crawl is really important because bands get really great exposure. It's also a really great opportunity to play to music fans who may have heard of you but haven't had the chance to see you yet." [10] Musicians from Hadouken! and dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip agreed that performing at Camden Crawl had marked "a turning point" in their careers. [10]
The Electric Ballroom is a 1,500-capacity performance venue and indoor market located at 184 Camden High Street in Camden Town, London, England.
A folk club is a regular event, permanent venue, or section of a venue devoted to folk music and traditional music. Folk clubs were primarily an urban phenomenon of 1960s and 1970s Great Britain and Ireland, and vital to the second British folk revival, but continue today there and elsewhere. In America, as part of the American folk music revival, they played a key role not only in acoustic music, but in launching the careers of groups that later became rock and roll acts.
T in the Park festival was a major Scottish music festival that was held annually from 1994 to 2016. It was named after its main sponsor, Tennents. The event was held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire, until 1996. It then moved to the disused Balado airfield, Perth and Kinross, from 1997 to 2014. In 2015 the festival moved to Strathallan Castle. It was originally held over two days, and extended to three days from 2007. In 2016 the daily capacity was 70,000.
The toilet circuit is the network of small music venues in the United Kingdom which rising indie, rock and metal bands often visit to gain support and promote themselves. The name may refer to the size and often the cleanliness of the venue, or a lack of dressing rooms leading to the band being required to change in the toilets.
SFX Hall, sometimes referred to as SFX Theatre or The SFX, was a theatre located on Upper Sherrard Street, in Dublin, Ireland. The venue was named after the St Francis Xavier Hall and constructed in 1957, although a theater had been located on that site since the middle of the 19th century. The theatre served as the national concert hall, a home to the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra, and on occasion, large-scale performances. The venue had a standing capacity of 1000 and hosted pop and rock music concerts until 2001 when the shows were moved to the Ambassador Theatre. In 1982, the Irish band U2 performed three shows at the SFX in support of their album War. At one time the Dublin Theater Festival was housed at the SFX.
The Barfly was a chain of live music venues in the United Kingdom originally started by Nick Moore, Jeremy Ledlin and Be Rozzo on Valentine's Day 1997. Club nights and events tended to feature rock, alternative and independent music.
The Masonic Temple is a hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-west corner of Davenport Road and Yonge Street.
The Celtic Connections festival started in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, and has since been held every January. Featuring over 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops, the festival focuses on the roots of traditional Scottish music and also features international folk, roots and world music artists. The festival is produced and promoted by Glasgow Life. Donald Shaw, a founding member of Capercaillie, was appointed Celtic Connections Artistic Director in 2006.
Electric Picnic is an annual arts-and-music festival which has been staged since 2004 at Stradbally Hall in Stradbally, County Laois, Ireland.
Noisettes are an English indie rock band from London, currently composed of singer and bassist Shingai Shoniwa and guitarist Dan Smith. The band first achieved commercial success and nationwide recognition with the second single of their second album, "Don't Upset the Rhythm " which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in 2009.
Club Montepulciano was a lounge and cabaret club-night that ran themed events across a number of venues in London, with guest appearances in the South of England and across Europe, from 1993 to 2004. Founded by compere Heilco Van Der Pleog and DJ Nick Hollywood, it was variously described as a "clubland institution" by Time Out and "the future of clubbing" by The Independent. It acted as a launch pad for new talent and influenced the then emerging cabaret and burlesque scenes.
The music of Cardiff has been dominated mainly by rock music since the early 1990s with later trends developing towards more extreme styles of the genre such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby music scene in Newport, has brought a number of musicians to perform or begin their careers in South Wales.
The BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms was an October pop music festival in London run by the BBC for five years, 2006–2010. On 31 January 2011, the BBC announced that the event would be discontinued with immediate effect due to financial cutbacks.
This is a summary of the year 2006 in the Irish music industry.
Hadouken! were a British band formed in London in 2006 by singer, songwriter and producer James Smith and synth player Alice Spooner along with guitarist Daniel "Pilau" Rice, bassist Christopher Purcell and drummer Nick Rice. The band took its name from the special attack of the same name from the Street Fighter video game series. It was in Leeds that Hadouken! began their own record label, Surface Noise Records.
Does It Offend You, Yeah? are a British dance-punk band from Reading, Berkshire. They played what was to be their final show on 12 December 2015 at the Electric Ballroom, Camden Town. In September 2021, they announced a new album, titled We Do Our Own Stunts.
Glasvegas are a Scottish indie rock band from Glasgow. The band consists of James Allan (vocals), Rab Allan and Paul Donoghue, with Swedish drummer Jonna Löfgren joining the group in 2010 until her departure in 2020.
Delhi 2 Dublin is a Canadian world music group formed in 2006 in Vancouver who play a fusion of Bhangra, electronic, funk, dub, reggae, hip hop, Celtic music and a mashup of other genres.
Wax Fang is an American rock band formed in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, that combines elements of classic, psychedelic, progressive, and experimental rock music, as well as electronic and folk. The band consists of Scott Carney, Corey McAfee, Zach Driscoll, and Dave Chale.
The Dublin Castle is a pub and live music venue in Camden Town, London. It gained prominence as a venue in the late 1970s after the band Madness established a live reputation there. Subsequently, it was an important venue in the early stages of several bands' careers and contributed to the Britpop musical genre. Amy Winehouse was a regular visitor to the pub.
[I]n May 2012, an entire day of art historical speakers interwoven with London's hugely popular Camden Crawl music festival [...]