The Crimea at King's College (14/03/06)

Coming on to a tape of screaming babies, playing in front of a slightly strange picture
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and bathed in red light and smoke for most of the performance, The Crimea's dark live image is often at odds with their music, not least blissful, wide-eyed set closer (and recent top 40 single) Lottery Winners On Acid and the loving cover of Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere which precedes it.
Some of the album tracks, and the surprisingly prevalent other songs played, are already well suited to drama though, with Someone's Crying rescued from it's dirge-like recorded form by singer Davey Macmanus' frenzied intensity which he also puts to thrilling use on Opposite Ends, climbing into the crowd to rant at closer quarters. Not quite everything works so well.
Put-on attempts at madness in song introductions go particularly badly and a few songs (Girl Just Died, for instance) tread dangerously close to adolescent emo and come off the worse for it. The contradictions present though, instead of a set full of giddy Lottery Winners-alikes, are actually a large part of what makes them stand out and makes the close seem all the more wonderful.



(Thanks again to Ada for photos!)