Latitude Festival 2011: The Cribs
Despite a gigantic fan base, I still see The Cribs as being a hugely underrated band - pigeonholed into the reputation of being a pretty standard and fairly indistinguishable indie band. But there's more to the Jarman brothers than meets the eye. The band are well respected by some of the top musicians - a prime example being Johnny Marr becoming a fourth member of the band. Marr was originally supposed to play with the band at Latitude, but unfortunately announced his resignation shortly before. In his place was David Jones of Nine Black Alps; not the same as seeing a Smiths member, but the extra guitar was key in producing as powerful a sound as the group did. The music hall of fame ties don't end there, as during the band's rendition of the epic 'Be Safe', Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo appeared in an unusual video on the big screens to provide the song's verses in the form of a poetic speech.
True to their blase personalities, Ryan Jarman wore a pink wig throughout the set - making it all the more cool that he failed to mention it once. With incredibly satisfying Northern accents, the stage banter between songs only added to the entertainment of the band's mainly Southern audience. The hits, in particular 'Men's Needs' and 'I'm a Realist', were as well received as you would expect them to be, but the tracks that stood out for me were the lesser known ones that make the band as good as they are. Looking beyond the singles, you can discover quite a different band to what The Cribs are generally regarded as being.