Way back in the halcyon, innocent days of 2019, Angela Martin from Bugeye and her Croydonist co-founder Julia Woollams wanted to inject some life into the flatlining Croydon indie live music scene. And thus was birthed CroCroLand, a two-day festival in the heart of Croydon. For a new festival south of the river it was a resounding success with its fantastic line up. Its future looked bright. Then came 2020. We don’t really need to be reminded of that, but its aftermath played havoc with the London music scene. Not only did a large number of already dwindling indie venues close down or “repurpose”, but many of the vibrant scene’s stalwart bands decided to take indefinite hiatus.
As things began to return to some semblance of “normal” and live music started to live again, CroCroLand look like it was going to make a strong return in 2022 at Croydon’s recently restored landmark venue, the Fairfield Halls. Unfortunately, at the last moment it was cancelled, much to the disappointment of the fans and everyone involved. Thankfully, come 2024, CroCroLand made a strong return, selling out Stanley Arts in South Norwood, which turned out to be a more appropriate and perfect venue.
There was something very comforting about the return of CroCroLand, and not just the fact that I could walk to and from the venue. As previously mentioned, in the post-pandemic music scene many of the familiar bands had disappeared. As a long-time (photographic) chronicler of said scene I hardly recognised any of the bands currently playing around London, but as details of CCL were slowly revealed, more and more familiar names were appearing, as well as some fresh ones to make up a total of almost 40 bands over the weekend, playing across two stages. It was making for a packed two days. And it was.
For the performers playing early in the day it can be a bit disheartening performing to slowly filling rooms made up of festival crew, press liggers, and other bands turning up early for sound checks and to generally hang out. Nevertheless, these artists gave it their all. Standouts for me amongst these matinee artists were, on Saturday: the punk energies of Sulk, Pink Suits and Noah & The Loners on the Town Hall stage, and the psychedelic surf rock of Safari Inn on the smaller Concrete Playground stage. Third Lung were impressive too. Sunday’s impressive early starters were Flat Party and Gabi Garbutt on the main stage, and Dogviolet and Lonnie Gunn in the Concrete Playground. I should add that all those who showed up that early to perform that energetically deserve to be highly commended.
While most of my weekend was spent running between the two stages, as everything very impressively ran to schedule, even with the occasional and inevitable technical glitch, usually the result of a faulty cable or, in one instance, a missing key to a guitar case. For those taking a more relaxed approach to the event, London’s seemingly never-ending rain and grey skies took a welcome break and turned on possibly the warmest and sunniest weekend of the year. This gave the punters a chance to sit in the courtyard, catch a few rays, have some drinks and sample some of the freshly made food that was on offer.
As evening approached and the temperature started to drop with the sun, the music started to heat up. In fact, all the artists on the Town Hall stage (Hurtling, Berries, Whitelands, Desperate Journalist and headliner Mattiel) all gave stellar performances. As did Head Shrinkers, Deux Furieuses, Salvation Jayne and Liines in the Concrete Playground. The hardest part was deciding who to see because some performances, inevitably, overlapped.
Sunday evening’s standouts on the Town Hall stage were (for me) Fightmilk, Bugeye, She Drew the Gun and headliners The Subways, while in the Concrete Playground Jemma Freeman, Static Lives and Gen and The Degenerates all played blistering sets.
Like black cab drivers, it seems that there’s lots of music fans who don’t like to go south of the river. And yet the Stanley Arts venue, which will hopefully be returned to next year, is easy to access from Norwood Junction station with its connections to Victoria, London Bridge as well as the Overground and Thameslink, the trains we south Londoners have to regularly use to attend gigs in Hackney and other north and east London venues. And when there’s line-ups as good that offered at Cro Cro Land there seems no excuse not to venture south, especially beyond the recently gentrified/hipsterised Brixton and Peckham. It is safe, you know. We’re just hoping we won’t have to wait another five years for the next one. We’re not getting any younger.
Find out more about CroCroLand: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
Review and Photography by Chris Patmore
Keep up to date with all new content on Joyzine via our
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Mailing List