Having spent all last weekend in the estimable company of Deer Shed Festival – an event where every year more than half of those attending are less than 16 years of age – it isn’t really that much of a stretch to be at the Crescent on a Sunday afternoon for another family-friendly event in which to enjoy music. Promoted as one that will have “short sets, child-friendly volume, illuminated room, and activities between bands for the kids to have fun,” this is the new rock’n’roll.
The atmosphere inside the Crescent is warm, relaxed, and most welcoming. Scores of families have come down to this former working man’s club-turned-community venue and the children in their midst are already enjoying the first session of the day provided by Baby Band, who offer fun and educational classes full of music for little people, aged 3 months to 4 years, in and around York.
By way of a transition into the live music, local stalwarts Soma Crew open with a playful burst of the popular children’s nursery rhyme, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ before getting into the more serious business of their sublime avant-garde, post-krautrock, punk sound.
A loose collective of up to seven musicians, Soma Crew have been constants on the local scene for the past twelve years. This afternoon they appear as a trio giving them the opportunity to revisit some of their earlier material. ‘The Kiss Is It’ from the Another Dead Insect album is one such song, more melodic perhaps than when it was first released a decade ago but it remains just as compelling. Joined on a series of percussive instruments by their predominantly young audience they end with a pulsating ‘A Transformation.’
A short intermission and some further child-friendly fun later and it is the turn of York’s finest rock’n’roll band to take to the stage. Cowgirl never disappoint. The amps may be turned down a little and the the four-piece may also have pulled back some on the higher-octane, twin guitar throttle but this is still inescapably dazzling stuff. Cowgirl have the riffs, the tunes, and the melodic choruses and it never ceases to amaze me that this band is not huge.
And as the afternoon draws to a close we must applaud the initiative of local Latin American specialists Cailangos, ably assisted by York’s favourite live music promoter Please Please You, in putting on such an event, a lovely inclusive affair, firmly embracing both young and old alike and further underlining the importance of grassroots venues to local communities in bringing people together and providing them with such a wide range of top class entertainment.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from Family Fun at The Crescent Community Venue
