Just a few days ago Sheffield's finest, While She Sleeps got announced that they would playing in the vans store in Camden Town later today.
This was massive news for sleeps fans as they had just come back from playing a monstrous set at reading, and were already back in London to play another small, intimate FREE show for their fans. Now you can't say that this band doesn't care about their fans, because they value them more than money.
Now the Vans store said you need to have a wrist band or be on the guest list to get into this small free show, neither of which I had however it was still too much of a good opportunity to pass by so I decided to go along just to see. It actually turned out that a lot of people were already there and the time was only 1pm, five hours before the gig was supposed to begin. Most of them were like me, wanting to get in but had no wristband. Despite all of this we waited outside the store until the gig was going to start to see if there was any extra room inside for us, even if they wasn't we could still enjoy the gig from outside.As it was While She Sleeps and they don't exactly put on a show for a small crowd.
Sitting outside the store for a while, we decided to go in and to our surprise the whole band was inside casually shopping like the next customer through the door was. The first member we saw was Mat Welsh, who was trying on a jacket that was way to big for him. He was really friendly and easy to talk to about what was going on and how they were and what happened at reading, he seemed to chilled out and relaxed about it all, soon after that we saw Loz and Sean trying on shoes at the back and went over to talk to them for a bit. We told Lawrence the funny about his sister coming up to us at slam dunk and declaring she was his sister and telling us where he got the lyrics to "Our courage our cancer" from. We wouldn't actually find Adam in the store but managed to find Aaron, who firstly said "I remember you" to me which came as a massive shock to me. I had been to a couple of their shows and signings but never would I have though that a band member would recognise me!
After all the meeting was over the gig actually began, and WSS took to just a small corner of the shop to play for a pretty large crowd of fans inside and out. Turns out that there wasn't enough room however this didn't matter, because everyone in the streets of Camden could hear their music through the shop doors and all joined in with the crowd.
Inside look really packed and stuffy but everyone was breaking out and moshing along, screaming the lyrics to every verse that had been sang, this was the same outside as there was an equal crowd following the same pattern but also starting a mosh pit just outside the store. When "This Is The Six" kicked in there was now a large circle pit formed where a few hardcore fans joined in, bashing each other to the beat of the song. Soon more and more people from the streets crowed and joined in to see what was going on.
Before we knew it Loz and Mat, ran through the crowd and joined us into the outside pit still screaming along with the song getting the outside crowd involved. At this point everyone pushed forth towards them, crowding them with their lyrics at full blast. This was exactly what you would expect from a WSS crowd, truly live and mental as it was so unexpected and wild. Loz then gave a quick talk thanking us for coming down and apologising for not getting everyone in, however he made sure that he brought the party both inside and out, which was honestly so lovely of him to do.
The crowd outside got larger and larger as more people were curious to see what was happening, I mean there was a mosh pit in the middle of the streets! Not something you see everyday, but only in Camden.There set lasted for about 40 minutes which was decent, and each song got more energetic than the last and towards the end a lot more people tried to crowd surf in the store but also a mad guy tried to crowd surf from outside to inside the store which was absolutely mad! He didn't make it of course but you have to give the guy credit for even attempting something as mad as that.
The band played all the bangers, one after the other making the crowd go wild with them, and once again Loz, Aaron and Sean all came out for the last song to meet the outside crowd but ran around the shop into the streets like the mad northerns they are before running right back into the shop again to catch the final lines of "Our Courage Our Cancer" It then all came to an end and everyone from the store made there way out, all hot and sweaty for one last group photo to sum up an amazing night. At this point everyone wanted to be in it, even if the tourist on the streets jumped in to get some action.
That definitely had to be one of the most maddest gig's ever to go down in the WSS history, and Camden was so lucky to be a part of it. After most people had departed the band then came out to greet even more of their fans,making sure that everyone had a good time and got a chance to meet them which was nice of the band.
Even James from Deaf Havana was there catching the last set from sleeps. No idea where they had come from or why they were there but it was nice to see another fellow band enjoying their set also.Now everyone was a bit more calmed down and just chilling with people, talking about how amazing the show was, I don't think anyone ever expected this to happen as it was totally random and spontaneous for even the band themselves as they had no idea how mad this show would get.
I was so glad I went in the end, because it honestly was one experience in a life time you'd never get again and I can't thank While She Sleeps enough for making it happening, all for free. Such a quality band to do something like this and still have time to chill with their fans. This being the Third time seeing them live, they have never once disappointed me and are still keep me on my toes with every performance being so unique and memorising.One of my highlights of the summer. Great lads, thanks a lot guys for everything!
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