Back in 2006, The Cribs were riding high. Their jaunty, fresh, and rallying take on guitar music, demonstrated brilliantly on their Self-Titled debut album in 2004 and The New Fellas in 2005, had placed them on the precipice of being a very big deal, toeing the line between indie sleaze and rallying rock and roll. For vocalist Ryan Jarmen, it was a case of toeing the line of being on the right side of their success and things going too far.
Things went too far, and were almost fatal during a now infamous moment at the NME Awards. When going up to accept the award for Best Live Band - a nod which had actually been given to Franz Ferdinand, who weren't there to accept so presenter Peter Hook handed it to the Kaiser Chiefs to stand in, who then nominated The Cribs to grab it - Ryan threw himself on the Kaiser Chiefs' table, smashing the glasses and bottles that were on there and inadvertently stabbing himself in the back with the remaining shards. He ended up having two trips to the hospital, the second after returning for the afterparty, where it was revealed that he had punctured a kidney and was experiencing severe internal blood loss.
“I guess when you do stuff like that, you don’t feel it because there’s no nerves in there or whatever and when I came offstage after getting the award, I put my hand on my back, and my fingers just went straight inside," he told The Rise And Fall Of Indie Sleaze Podcast earlier this year.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ So we went straight to the hospital, and they stitched me up, and they said, ‘You’ve got to go straight back to the hotel and go to sleep, do not go back out tonight.’
