The Virgins, Camden Crawl, Roundhouse, April 24th
The Virgins, Camden Crawl, Roundhouse, April 24th
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Tuesday, 28, Apr 2009 02:37
Lewis Bazley is irritated by the New Yorkers' inability to pick a genre at the Camden Crawl.
Despite MTV UK helpfully providing an attractive Irish lass to introduce the band touted as 'the next Strokes', the opening show of the 2009 Camden Crawl only served to underwhelm.
But with the north London weather glorious and a hedonistic, devil-may-care vibe spreading through Camden as the thousands revelled in the first festival of the summer, the fault for disappointment at the Roundhouse lay solely at the feet of the Virgins.
They may have been labelled the successors to Julian Casablancas and co - though that epithet surely includes lounging about doing next to nothing after three albums - but the Virgins seem entirely unsure of what kind of band they are.
Just a quick glance over the influences covered in their 45-minute set reveals the stylistic schizophrenia at the root of the problem - Television, the Cure, New Order, Simple Minds, Sly and the Family Stone, Stone Temple Pilots and the Rolling Stones - all fine acts but hardly the ingredients for a successful musical mouthful.
There are certainly hints of promise in the anthemic Teen Lovers and recent hit Rich Girls (despite the latter's bizarre blaxploitation intro). But with a largely indifferent crowd anxious for the subsequent Yeah Yeah Yeahs set that followed, and frontman Donald Lumsden putting a hand on his hip so frequently that the friend I went with labelled him "a little teapot", even a closing cover of Squeeze's Up the Junction couldn't save this show from sinking in its opening slot.
Lewis Bazley