Last night (3rd August 2020), indie darlings Sports Team unveiled previously unseen footage of themselves playing Camel Crew live. A socially distanced gig, of course, Camel Crew was played to an empty venue. A fan favourite, Camel Crew is taken from Sports Teams’ fantastic debut album, Deep Down Happy.
An ironic locational pairing, Sports Teams’ performed at Kennington’s world-famous cricket ground, The Oval, in London. The group were also outfitted in a cricket-appropriate colour palette, a playful nod to the gig’s setting. Posting a celebratory photo on Twitter, the band jokingly said of the performance: “First band to play The Oval since The Who in ’72. Same vibe.”
Blaring their anthemic raucous on a small stage directly in the middle of the sweeping stadium, the sound of Camel Crew fills the huge, empty venue to the brim. Playing with the zest and charisma of longtime headliners, Sports Teams’ most recent performance is just a taste of what is to come for these rising stars. As the coronavirus crisis hopefully dissipates with time, and health guidelines permit live gigs again, Sports Team will be playing filled stadiums faster than you can say, Kutcher.
Sports Team shared their high-energy performance on their official YouTube channel, which has already received over 4500 views. The spunky six-piece also posted their performance to Instagram, sharing jokingly to their 35,000 followers: “‘Camel Crew’ was one of the first songs we wrote, always knew we’d wind up playing it to empty stadiums.” Garnering over 5,000 likes and views, the post was warmly received by the band’s ever-growing fanbase.
Make no mistake, Sports Team have been hard at work during lockdown, and have already been creating their second album together. Lead vocalist Alex Rice chatted to NME last month about their next project, mentioning that they had “been in the studio for the past three weeks, cracking on with album two”.
Rice spoke further on the making of Deep Down Happy, revealing that “The last album was born out of playing live shows.” Rice expanded with “being recorded in a block, it was done with us coming back from tour on a ferry, going straight into the studio and trying to get a single out of it. Then we’d be straight back on tour.”
A sonic experiment following their long-awaited debut album, Rice says their next album is “more about the sound. It’s about the changes of the scene within a song as well. We’re looking at changing the mood in a big way.” Now fans won’t have to wait too long for the indie rock gang to add to their discography!
Released on the 5th June, Deep Down Happy is nominated for a coveted Mercury Award, and also went head-to-head with none other than Lady Gaga for Number 1 album in the UK Official Charts that month. The euphoric Deep Down Happy is composed of twelve tracks and contains the singles Going Soft, Born Sugar, and Here’s The Thing.
