Skinny jeans and drunken teens — the Camden Crawl was a manic, sprawling affair for the young and fashionable. The annual event, set over 28 venues in NW1, prompted hordes of indie revellers to head to the capital on Friday night for a glimpse of the year’s hottest talent. And what better place to host the festivities than Camden, the trendy home of indie chic? The problem, however, is that the demands of the two-day event are often too much for Camden’s smaller venues, leaving many of the fans quite literally out in the cold.

One artist causing a longer queue than most was Lykke Li, the much-trumpeted Swedish starlet. Black Cap was packed with people eager to see the doe-eyed vocalist strut her seductive stuff. Little Bit, a breathless, hypnotic ballad, sounded like a song that will propel her to much bigger things. The queues can only get longer.

One Night Only may look like The Kooks’ younger brothers, but the Yorkshire four-piece’s brand of anthemic indie-rock was easily big enough to fill Oh! Bar. Bouncy choruses and a cocksure swagger hardly single the boys out in an already crowded genre, although single Just For Tonight is ready-made for the festival tents this summer.

It was already gone midnight when Swedish songstress Robyn strutted onto the Koko stage to play a set that was heavy on attitude but light on hits. Can’t Handle Me saw Robyn at her feisty best, belting out the song’s poison-flecked lyrics while her two drummers provided an entertaining percussive sideshow. With Every Heartbeat, the monster dance hit that propelled Robyn into the spotlight last year, gave an increasingly restless crowd something to sing along to.

It wasn’t the triumphant finale that the Camden Crawl was looking for — but crawling over the line was a forgivable finish to this exhausting but enjoyable evening.