Camille @ Billboard, Melbourne(21/01/09)

Sun 25th Jan, 2009 in Gig Reviews

There’s a huge difference between hearing a Camille album and seeing her live. Not because the songs sound so different, but because they sound so similar – seeing and hearing her group perform the songs live and without an instrument other than their voices and bodies, is simply stunning.

There are seven members in Camille’s band and only one instrument – a grand piano – on stage. Nearly every sound is created vocally or through – œbody percussion’; clapping, stamping, dancing singers provided percussion to compliment the bass of the duelling beatboxers and the blend of Camille’s voice with the harmonies of her backing vocalists. When the piano did get a turn it was just as likely to be played for percussion as melody and the only other – œinstruments’ employed included Perspex wobble boards, bubble wrap, broom heads and a skipping rope.

After a low-key support set from Washington, playing current radio fave Clementine and making her shy debut on guitar with a song about writing her will, the crowd gathered forward in the sweltering basement venue for the main attraction. It was one of those rare humid Melbourne nights and the backing tape of squelching dripping water over the PA only made things seem even more strangely overheated.

From the outset with an opening run of La Jeune Fille aux Cheveux Blancs, Home Is Where It Hurts, Baby Carni Bird and Au Port Billboard was filled with more love a cult compound during a mass wedding ceremony. Calling on the crowd to sing the chorus line to Au Port and failing in a fit of giggles we got a crash course in French from Camille that did little to improve our ability to sing along. Though on the next track, her cover of the Dead Kennedy’s Too Drunk to Fuck, the punters had no such problems singing along as the backing singers played some fine air guitar and her beatboxers nailed the guitar solo. The beatboxers, Ezra and Sly, took a moment to battle and thrill the punters – even though most fans looked like they’d never stray to an actual hip-hop gig. It would have been impossible to wipe the grins from the faces of the band and the audience as the on stage antics flooded over the audience. When a group is so clearly loving the sheer thrill of performing it’s impossible to get caught up in the sweep of the moment.

The main set closer Gospel with No Lord was sung like the flipside to a Grammy-winning-speech as she rejects divine inspiration for her talents – I didn’t get it from the lord/But I know I got it. And more to the point she’s got the audience. Toying with the fans affections as she flirts, undresses, borrows clothes from punters and teases her bandmates for dreaming about sleeping with her. With their smatterings of attempts at high-school French sing alongs, the crowd was made up almost entirely of girls in their new summer clothes and a few dreadlocked blokes lured in by the fact that because Camille’s French her albums stray into that vague – œWorld Music’ category in many a record shop. But not matter how they’d come to hear Camille’s music first, it seemed as though everyone was willing to declare their undying love for Camille, or at perhaps for one of her bandmates as they hammed their way through the set.

During a stunning solo Camille was interrupted by a buzzing voice over a security guard’s walkie talkie – ‘let me know when she finishes’. Camille simply laughed and joked – œguess you’re used to some more hard core stuff’ before returning to her song – as nothing could break the spell she had woven over the audience. After a brief encore including radio favourite Ta Douleur, Sly returned to get the punters dancing for the Money Note before the rest of the crew joined him in an array of odd costumes – the two backing boys in an risqué ensemble involving gold shorts that could have been pinched from Kylie’s wardrobe. To close the full group gathered at the front of stage for a third encore with a song perfectly appropriate on the day of Obama’s inauguration, the Pointer Sister’s classic Yes We Can Can,and despite the eager punters begging, baying and bellowing for more the night was over.

Through her set of vocal acrobatics, beatbox battles, glorious harmonies and flirtatious humour the French songstress offered one of the most incredible and memorable performances we’re likely to witness this year, or in any year. You don’t need to speak or understand French, you just need to listen to Camille and make sure to see her live.

CHECK OUT THE PIX HERE