The Cribs topped the bill at the final day of Tramlines festival in Sheffield, declaring that the gig felt “kind of like a hometown show” despite the band hailing from Wakefield.
Addressing the crowd midway through the set, bassist Gary Jarman declared, “When we first started out we used to consider ourselves a Sheffield band because Sheffield was cooler back in the day. It’s great to be back here, it’s kind of like a hometown show.”
Entering the outside stage at the Devonshire Green venue to Joe Esposito track ‘You’re The Best’, the Jarman brothers kicked off with ‘Our Bovine Public’, getting the crowd to sing back lines of the chorus. Continuing with ‘Girls Like Mystery’, guitarist Ryan Jarman then asked the crowd if they were “ready to rock” before introducing debut album track ‘Lights Went Out’ as “an old one”.
Debut single ‘Another Number’ was dedicated to “anyone who saw us at the National Centre For Popular Music, like, 12 years ago,” while Ryan revved up the crowd before recent single ‘Come On, Be A No-one” by joking, “Moshpits are allowed in Sheffield, right? And crowdsurfing and shit?”.
Continuing with rarely played B-side ‘You’re Gonna Lose Us’ and a host of cuts from across their 12-year career, including ‘Cheat On Me’ and ‘Moving Pictures’, Ryan then declared that it was “time for a bit of rock star shit” before instigating a Freddie Mercury-style call and response chant with the crowd.
‘I’m A Realist’, ‘Be Safe’ and ‘Mirror Kissers’ all followed, while fan favourite ‘Men’s Needs’ was preceded by Gary singing a portion of old Sheffield band and former tour mates The Long Blondes’ track ‘Giddy Stratospheres’.
Closing with ‘City Of Bugs’, the band finished customarily with no encore.
Despite having already written a host of material for a forthcoming sixth studio album, the follow-up to 2012’s ‘In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull’, the band did not debut any new tracks during the set, stating a lack of finished lyrics as the reason why.
“The lyrics aren’t finished yet and I’ll be damned if I’m going to play new songs when the lyrics aren’t finished because people get your lyrics wrong online all the time anyway,” Ryan Jarman told NME before their set. “I read what our lyrics are online and they’re always totally wrong, so if you put an early version out there then that would sort of become the definitive version.”
They did, however, soundcheck some of the songs slated for their as-yet-untitled next record earlier that morning. “We had them booming out over Sheffield town centre at 9am this morning. That was fun, just playing them into this big empty field in the middle of the city,” Gary Jarman added.
The Cribs played:
‘Our Bovine Public’
‘Girls Like Mystery’
‘Lights Went Out’
‘Another Number’
‘Come On, Be A No-one’
‘You’re Gonna Lose Us’
‘Cheat On Me’
‘Back To The Bolthole’
‘Moving Pictures’
‘I’m A Realist’
‘Hey Scenesters!’
‘Be Safe’
‘Mirror Kissers’
‘Men’s Needs’
‘City Of Bugs’
The festival also saw sets that day from Bo Ningen, who packed the Queens Head Social Club for a half-hour set of acid psych, while Veronica Falls and Woman’s Hour also drew impressive numbers to their shows, despite the latter coming on more than 30 minutes late for their mid-afternoon set.
The Cribs are set to play a number of other small festival headlines this summer, including Split Festival in Sunderland and Long Division in Wakefield, before playing an intimate show at London’s Relentless Garage on September 11, where fans will be able to choose the setlist.