Camera Obscura – Page 4 – My (life in) music lists

Live music galleries: Camera Obscura [2013]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Camera Obscura live at Bluesfest 2013

Artist: Camera Osbcura
When: July 5th, 2013
Where: River stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: In my humble opinion, 2013 saw the best lineup that Ottawa Bluesfest has ever seen, especially for indie rock fans like myself. Case in point was this early evening performance by Glasgow’s Camera Obscura on one of the festival’s side stages. This set in support of their fifth record, “Desire lines”, was actually my second time seeing the band, but I haven’t seen them since. I was super glad to catch this show with original keyboard player, Carey Lander, who, unfortunately for all of us, died two years later from Osteosarcoma. The indie pop group went on hiatus afterwards and only just this year returned to performing live. Hopefully, this means new material and perhaps another North American tour soon.
Point of reference song: “Break it to you gently”

Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura

Carey Lander of Camera Obscura

Carey Lander’s keyboard

Lee Thomson of Camera Obscura

Carey Lander, Tim Cronin, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura

Kenny McKeeve and Gavin Dunbar of Camera Obscura

Tracyanne Campbell

Best tunes of 2001: #17 Camera Obscura “Eighties fan”

<< #18 | #16 >>

I stumbled upon Camera Obscura while on the internets and saw their name in connection with Belle And Sebastian, a band I’ve been into quite heavy for years. I listened to their second album, 2003’s “Underachievers try harder”, first and worked backwards.

You can definitely here the B&S influence on the Glasgow-based indie pop band’s debut, “Biggest bluest hi-fi”, especially since it was produced by Stuart Murdoch, but they definitely are their own band. Led by the delicate to the point of crumbling vocals of Tracyanne Campbell, Camera Obscura’s is even more retro sounding, harkening back to girl groups crying over broken hearts in the 60s.

“You say your life will be the death of you
Tell me, do you wash your hair in honeydew
And long for all of them to fall in love with you
But they never do”

“Eighties fan” starts off with a drum beat you’re sure you’ve before a hundred times, hinting at something upbeat, but Camera Obscura doesn’t go there. Instead, they run up crying to their bedroom and slam the door. They put something sad on the turntable and crank the volume, ignoring the shouts of their mother below. They pull out the tiny bottle of vodka that an older teenager had procured for them and sip lightly but still coughing and sputtering. There curse the name of their more attractive and hipper older sister for catching the eye of their cute boy they had a crush on and cry, tears streaming everywhere. And… well… you get the picture.

An incredible first single off the debut album that started it all.