Camden Crawl, London, Friday April 18

Porkpie hats; eighties cocktail frocks; Winehouse-eyeliner; pastel tights; skinny jeans, obviously; checked shirts, granddad cardigans and Converse, Converse, Converse. Camden’s always been London’s Indie Central, but during the two days of the Camden Crawl the area becomes slightly monocultural – anything goes so long as it’s indie.

In fairness, the modern indie fan prays in a broad church and the bands booked here this weekend cover a wide spectrum from the blogger-friendly grime of Kano to the chart-topping Scandi-pop of Robyn.

First Bombay Bicycle Club, on a stage round at the back of the bars in Inverness Street. There are a number of off-diary ‘secret’ gigs happening before the official kick off, meant to appeal mainly to the section of the audience who must be home by ten or face being grounded for a month. Bombay Bicycle Club fall into this category, being still in their teens, and the audience splits along an age-based fault-line: enthusiastic teens springing into the air upfront, over-25s, mostly there for work, standing at the back, periodically daring one another to join the mosh pit. Named after a London-based chain of upscale Indian take-aways, BBC are clearly fans of Interpol and The Libertines, but with a cleanly exuberant air that suits their age. It begins to feel like a festival, rather than just another day of bowling about Camden in the rain.

Ipso Facto are a band I’ve been attempting to see for ages and they’re proper gothic glam, all black lace, Hammer Horror organ sounds and spider web psychedelica. Lead singer Rosalie Cunningham has a voice somewhere between Howling Bells’ Juanita Stein and Sophie Ellis Bextor in the days of theaudience. There’s a definite kitsch vibe, but as with The Cramps and their Rocky Horror shtick, there’s never a sense that they don’t take the music seriously. I’m in love and I want to join the band, which is pretty much the highest praise I can give any artist.

Youth Movies, given the hype, are a disappointment. I can see the often-mentioned similarities between them and 65 Days Of Static, but Youth Movies lack Static’s feeling of togetherness. Sloppiness aside, I was off them from the start. The lead singer’s obvious desire to be Brian Ferry (the hair, the croon) plus the often short of breath trumpet player made it look like they were trying very hard to be Roxy Music. And failing. And no one disses Roxy in front of me.

A one-in-one-out queue stretching half-way down the road puts paid to any ideas of seeing Lykke Li and Ladyhawke’s Pip Brown is visible but sonically muffled through the window of the Earl of Camden. Despite the crowds it’s so very worth forging ahead to see Make Model, the latest bearers of the Glasgow indiepop flame, although this time with a folk twist. They pack the stage out, with a Broken Social Scene vibe and give it over to musical happy endings.