A big shout out goes to Neala Hickey for writing this fantastic review of the Camera Obscura performance last Thursday. Another example of the kind of talent showcased by Beck’s Uberselektor.

Camera Obscura
Beck’s Festival Bar, Sydney Festival 
21st January 2010

Camera Obscura feature in many a fine journalists’ definition of pop perfection. Influential British music journo, Paul Morley in his two-part documentary on Camera Obscura, places them up there with the most progressive and inspired acts in popular music. Truthfully, not so many albums will leave you so besieged as by Tracyanne Campbell’s melancholic confessionals. But she never reduces music to a dirge and all the while, listening to Camera Obscura harkens back to the hayday of pop craftsmanship, singalong choruses and chamber pop enchantment. This is what broken hearts were made for. 

Tonight, Camera Obscura managed to do what so many other bands fail to do. They translated the intimacies of their albums into the intimacies of playing live but only did this become truly apparent on their slower numbers. Rolling through some of their best known tracks, Camera Obscura played these with lacklustre or so it seemed. ‘French Navy’, one of their most successful tracks would have me dancing at home, waiting for the bus, in a club, but at their very own gig, Camera Obscura didn’t muster a lush crescendo, a bop up and down or any encouragement to do so for their fans. Even my personal favourite, ‘Honey in the Sun’, felt emptier somehow. The vocals drenched in longing felt too languished for the girl-pop motown inspired number. 

But, in all honesty, these are exceptions because if there’s one thing Camera Obscura excel at, it’s encapsulating a plethora of emotions in one sly line and dousing you with country-pop ache. ‘Rose, I’m feeling older, Have courage my love, makes you bolder’. Campbell’s lilt, gentle and uncharactaristically hopeful, suddenly fills the big tent. It hit me, they are not grumpy or aloof, Camera Obscura are gentle and introspective and onstage, its magnification can be spellbinding. Likewise, ‘Lloyd, I’m ready to be heartbroken’ and ‘Let’s get out of this Country’, filled with sorrow and yearning and all in-between bursts at the seams with honesty and it’s difficult not to admire their tendancy to shy away from motivational audience tactics which many sub-talented bands resort to. 

And so, it was an experience more of one woman’s worldly exploits and expression and instead of pandering to other people, Campbell and the band played with raw honesty. Despite what seemed like aloofness at times, and a wee bit of disappointment in their more upbeat tracks, they made the night one of a kind. For such a display of reverence for expression and refining the definition of popular music, Camera Obscura, tonight deserved silence in Hyde Park Barracks.

Thanks again Neala

The invitation is open to anyone who would like to write a review on any performances at this year’s Beck’s Festival Bar.