The Hidden Cameras / Royal City - London ICA - 2/6/03
5/5
By: Toby L
Royal City Set-List: 'Bring A Father', 'Bad Luck', 'Daisy', 'Yonder', 'Enemy', 'Can't You', 'Meatman', 'Hollow', 'Burning', 'Lady', 'Jerusalem', 'Spacey', '(Tarry)'.
What the... hell? Mid-way into hotly-reckoned Canadian newcomers The Hidden Cameras' first ever London headline - to a sell-out room of 350, no less - and two male dancers have stripped to their near-luminous Y-fronts. It bears all the grace and dignity as the prospect of Justin Timberlake returning to N*Sync. But Joel Gibb - frontman of Toronto's 'gay church folk music' collective - is not here to waste time when an impression can be cast instead.
As if forming the basis of 2003's secretly finest record - 'The Smell of our Own' - wasn't enough already, Gibb has taken it upon himself to form one of the year's must-see, thrilling live-shows: a teeming stage adrift with performers of all calibres and costumes and musical-accompaniment - from strings to vintage keyboards, right through to flamboyant characters that actually don't do much but flail around pathetically to the ensuing thudder. As a mere stage-show, it's sublimely compulsive. Yet the fact that - tunefully - it's a battling combination of The Delgados, Belle & Sebastian and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, makes for an even more-so riveting display.
First up, however, are Rough Trade's similarly signed batch of Toronto descendents - Royal City: a banjo-bolstering, Cajun-inspired treat of minimalist country/blues-esque warbling and arrangements, garnished with occasional, gently rapturous solos, and a charismatically deadpan vocalist in the shape of Aaron Riches, a less-infringing Adam Green if you will.
The extended quartet whiz through the best part of an hour taking in tracks from both of their studio-LPs to date - specifically, the dazzling, current effort, 'Alone At The Microphone', Riches apologising after a tad too much self-promotion, 'We're just shamelessly plugging our record,' to muffled guffaws. No worries here - the continual effect is joyous, at times tragic and beautiful - usually invoked via harmonies or thoughtful usage of violin or harmonica - but, whatever the inducement, utterly human.
The following spectacle, however, is something else entirely. The distant reverberations of sleigh-bells and strummed acoustic-guitar minutely echo around the room's darkened space, and the crowd parts. Yup - no backstage bullshit for the 'Cameras: they're entering this place just like we did - via the front entrance. As they manoeuvre across their attendees and one-by-one creep onstage, the sense that anything could happen tonight is perhaps the most fitting presumption to adopt.
Lyrics flash upon the screen behind the performers and the opening glimmer of 'Golden Streams' is fulfilled: pensive cello entwining with Gibb's all-out whine to euphoric standards. The room goes wild, yet the tone remains that of controlled understatement, akin to the restraint issued to a freshly locked-up, rabid dog. A clutch of their album's more angelic, yet no less wry, exertions swiftly follow - 'The Man That I Am With My Man', heart-swelling new single 'A Miracle' (initially played in the wrong key), plus 'The Heavy Flow Of Evil'. But then, behind his yet-to-be-discarded, thick glass-frames, Gibb utters the inevitable.
'Are you ready to have fun?'
This is when it really takes off. The playful stomp and chug of 'Music Is My Boyfriend' hits the speakers, the drums at last kick in and the resulting celebration proves impossibly infectious. The tone remains like this for the rest of the 70-minute set - blast after blast of feel-good, implausibly well-crafted and instantly warming odes to the homosexual in all of us; never less than camp, witty and delectably melodic.
So we're in the band's palms as they ask us to join in with their dancers for not-so-complex routines; amidst a state of mass-unison sing-a-longs as we chant, 'Ban marriage,' during the comforting tones of what formed the combo's debut-single; and revel at the sight of fifteen onstage players collapsing to the ground during 'The Animals Of Prey', following - cunningly - a reference to 'playing dead'. And are aghast when they decide to encore with the house-lights on for a final stampede of their intelligent, endearing, artful pop.
Whilst plaintively conjuring the most presently epic soundtrack to an increasingly prosperous music-parade, The Hidden Cameras also manage the trick of retaining a full sense of immediacy, expertly etched composing, and a wonderment of a leader in Gibb. With such core elements in place, the indie-world could be theirs. And sooner, rather than later.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment