Blood, Sweat And Jarmans

The Cribs Were The Greatest Live Band Of My Youth

When The Cribs came to New York in 2015 for 3 shows, I went to all three, and I had to go to work early in the morning. I was literally dying the morning after the last show, but it was sooooo worthy. They have the most energetic, exhilarating, and the most cathartic live show ever. People were shouting and jumping. I remembered covering bruises and beer after the shows, but I couldn’t wait to go back to their next show. They were that good, and everyone around at the shows agreed. We all shouting until our lungs gave up, and extended from the ankle forcing our feet back into the floor in an attempt to crack the concrete. Half way down the set, I saw blood dripping down Ryan’s mouth. Yes, that’s right, BLOOD. He was singing too hard into the microphone, and his lips actually bumped into the mic too hard and split. After the show, I was told it had happened a few times before, and sometimes, he would drool saliva because he was too wasted. Apparently, according NME,

“Ryan Jarman’s bleeding lip:
Back in the mid-late 2000s, you’d be hard pressed to find a Cribs show that didn’t look like a particularly indie vampire movie. After splitting his lip at an early show, singer Ryan Jarman’s oral injury would invariably burst again within a couple of songs of all-guns-blazing, mic-smashing energy. Robert Pattinson, eat your heart out.”https://www.nme.com/photos/10-musicians-who-suffered-horrendous-injuries-but-carried-on-gigging-1426019

The Purists & realists

The Cribs are an English indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The band consists of twins Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. It’s a family affair. Maybe That’s why their live show is so good? “If you’ve managed to sustain what you do for 15 years like we have, and you’re still afraid to nail your colours to the mast by this point, then you either don’t trust yourself or you don’t understand the people who like the band,” said the Cribs bassist Gary Jarman.

Having released 7 albums and numerous singles since 2004, while the vast majority of their more willing peers eventually burnt out, faded away or, er… joined the judging panel of The Voice, The Cribs simply carried on doing what they’d always done– making music. From the start of their career, The Cribs always maintains their intention of not playing by the industry rule. “We always had ambitions but it was a secondary thing. It wasn’t the priority. When bands say they wanna be the biggest band in the world, to me that says ‘I wanna be the most compromised band in the world’,” explains Ryan. their self-titled first album so lo-fi that, at that point, the long-term Albini devotees considered the notoriously visceral, unpolished punk producer’s records as “a bit too high fi, or a bit too big-sounding” for their liking, says Ryan.

However, The Cribs is definitely the biggest “small” band in the world (or at least in UK). Their last four albums have all gone UK Top Ten (Ignore the Ignorant, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull, For All My Sisters,24-7 Rock Star Shit). Plus, they had Johnny Marr (The Smiths’s guitarist) joining the band for a album (Ignore the Ignorant).

To sums up The Cribs, a band whose only nod towards increasing popularity has been to buck the tradition and improve, rather than turn in increasingly pallid copies of their initial success. A band who do things with an unstyled, unafflicted dedication.

It’s a trait reflected in their crowd. Given The Cribs’ vitriol towards posers and try-hards, it isn’t that surprising to find a lack of cross-armed indifference in the crowd. Just a pogoing mass of people who really couldn’t care if this is the place to be seen, or that they’ve got half a pint of lager left in their plastic glass, the time is right to launch it into the sky in an expression of sheer exuberance. It brings a tear to your eye. Particularly when the cup hits you. But you know what you’re getting with a Cribs show. There’s the best kind of predictability which means you know it will be sweaty, messy, bordering on chaotic and yet somehow done with absolute precision.

Side Note: The Cribs has said one of their favorite band is Pavement, which is also one of my favorite. I guess this makes a lot of sense haha!