she will take our pain

So here it is. The first ever gig review on TFoT.

On Monday, me and the 'soon to be missus' took a birthday jaunt (hers not mine) up to town to see the lovely French singer Camille giving a reasonably rare UK performance at the Scala. Her album 'Le Fil' (the thread) has been on constant rotation in the flat so we were both really looking forward to hearing whether or not she could pull off the complexity of the music in a live setting.

She didn't disappoint.

Camille's band is technically a three piece with Matthew Ker on piano and Martin Gamet on bass and percussion. I say techinically because I spotted that there was a fourth 'band member' doing the the laptop trickery at the side of the stage. The strength of the evening's performance for me was the combined talents of all these wonderful players. It's true to say that Camille's voice soared, buzzed, flipped, tricked, teased and generally thrilled with each amazing note she pulled off, but her talents were matched but her 'support', especially Matthew. Those of you familiar with 'Le Fil' will remember the track 'Janine' which is sung three times over the course of the album at different speeds. Well, during this tune Matthew's backing vocals of 'trollop - salop' directed at the singer put a big smile on my face. They were enjoying themselves as much as us and it really showed.

Camille isn't afraid of her audience either. The level of participation made me a little bit glad that we'd parked our old aged arses up on the balcony! She stole people's drinks and bags, intiated numerous sing alongs and ended the concert by leading everyone out into the street to a chant of 'We are all European'! I seem to remember her reinacting the Zidane incident more than once during the show too.

Pure Voice. Pure Entertainment.

Merci Camille! Encore!!!

... and for those of you who have not heard Camille yet, here is the 'hit single' from 'Le Fil' which you can buy here

camille - ta douleur