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Friday 6th April 2012
All Day BBQ Festival

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On Our iPod

Golden Grrrls - New Pop 7”

Chris Devotion & The Expectations - Amalgamation & Capital (album)

Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester (album)

Throwing Up - Mother Knows Best 7”

Howling Wolf - Complete Chess Masters 1951-60

The Ketamines - A Rotten Bond/1 Yr (from Oddbox Singles Club Pt 2)

Cardinal - Hymns (album)

Proper Ornaments - Taking the Gamble Out of Buying 12”

Darren Hayman - January Songs (album)

Various: Marshall Teller EP 12”

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Gig Review

Hidden Cameras
Audio (Brighton) and Hoxton Bar & Kitchen (London)

Article written by Alex S - Apr 11, 2010

Hidden Cameras

Seldom have I seen a band more than once on the same tour, so it was a rarefied pleasure to have enjoyed the Cameras twice in the same week. They didn’t disappoint. First up, the proverbial one man and his dog, or more accurately, one man and his handlebar moustache experienced a tour de force from Joel and the team at Audio. Describing a Cameras song is like listening to ‘The Lark Ascending’. ‘The violin wends its way in a mood of rapt contemplation, adding melismatic turns to the rising melodic line and accompanied by the quiet hazy harmonies from the band’. Quite. As the violin climbs ever higher the mood of tranquil rapture is broken by Joel’s gurning face. He is the only man I know whose facial contortions exactly resemble a gaping arsehole. The slow pace of the early songs had Joel singing like Vic Reeves pub singer from Shooting Stars; peeking through always though the voice of an angel. What is never in doubt is how his lyrics are filled with the shimmering sounds of nocturnal portent. Oh how he would have tingled at the scene unfolding in front of soundsxp’s old hovians. As one man barely legal pumped his rear like a pneumatic drill a man old enough to be his catholic priest dribbled and drooled as Joel crooned “I drank from the wine that came from inside the heart of his meat and the splurge of his sweet”. It was just as filthy on stage. Whilst the keyboard player smiled and giggled her way through the evening the violinist played fiddle to the four young girls at the front. At least until Joel blew him away. Leaping on the barriers holding back the throng, thrusting his groin into the faces of our young cherubim’s, Joel snarled with fury and Satan himself sprang forth from his lips. It was mesmerising, if a little scary, given Joel’s Germanic rants earlier in the set. But don’t be mistaken, there was a lot of love in the room tonight, and the Cameras carried us in their arms with their charm and beauty. The evening finished with a belting version of ‘Death of a Tune’ and the band sloped away into the corrupting influences of a Brighton night; shining, golden – doomed and damned.

Hoxton’s bar and kitchen was an altogether different affair. Completely rammed with the beautiful people, the audience mirrored the set of ‘The Vampire Diaries’. The Cameras are famed for their ever changing line-up and tonight was no exception. Boasting at least 3 more members than at Audio a week ago, it took as long to assemble the band as it did to play the set. One man bustled past me with a plaintive cry, “make way, I’m in the band”. The doubting Thomas’s had to swallow their words though as the vested one stepped up on stage, where he proceeded to lurk in the corners of the stage as if under a lamp post, tugging on his sax like a Player No 6 as he waited to pull some unsuspecting punter who had also wandered up from the crowd. But there was none of the seediness we saw a week ago, and the band altered their mood accordingly. The music was harder, sharper, tighter and rockier. That said, the touching, tender version of ‘He is the Boss of Me’ from first album Ecce Homo stood out. Crowd and band united in a metaphoric display of hand holding whilst gazing longingly into the eyes of the stranger on their shoulder. Tragically though, the evening was ruined by the fact the band didn’t come on until 10.15. Hence I was only able to see half a dozen songs before skulking back to the tube and the last train. But there was enough here to convince this was shaping up to be another stellar performance. As I chomped on a Whopper on the burger express to Brighton I was left comparing the words of a disappointed Paul M when reviewing the latest album with those of Alexis Petridis from the Guardian. Although Gibbs’ lyrics tend to more ‘oblique’ nowadays, two gigs in a week have convinced me the Cameras are as powerful, entertaining and prone to causing trouble as they ever were. As Petridis points out, “even today, they are still wont to release singles such as Underage, a song that curiously failed to find much favour with radio programmers”. Long may the Cameras shock and awe in equal measure.

Links:
http://www.thehiddencameras.com/