Camille - La Fille du Cirque

 

 

Camille is an alchemist. She appropriates Nick Cave’s spirituality and rescues Jacques Brel from kitsch to create a unique blend of hard jazz, post-punk anger and engaged cabaret. Her show is self-consciously theatrical, yet has an unpredictable energy and sincerity, fearlessly descending into the darker emotions.

Opening with a ghostly "God is in the House," Camille effortlessly commands the audience. Cave’s confusing lyrics are transformed from clumsy hymn to calming lullaby, before the band tears into "The Devil’s Workshop" - a rousing introduction to Camille’s preoccupation with the conflict between good and evil. The constant shifts between emotions make La Fille du Cirque exhausting; by turns, she is nostalgic, sentimental, enraged, playful, and despairing; she inhabits the death row inmate of "The Mercy Seat" and the single mother of "Look Mummy" so thoroughly that her banter and Irish accent seem incongruous. Brel’s "Next" is blistering, as intense as metal, while on Bowie’s "Moonage Daydream," she undermines bombastic rock with sly eroticism.

Even as she manipulates her audience shamelessly - leading them from tears, to laughter, to terror and back again - Camille is posing questions. Juxtaposing Nick Cave against Jacques Brel, she reveals the latter's anguish and former's theatricality. Camille explores more emotions more deeply than any other performer, simultaneously up-dating cabaret and shaming the conservatism of most pop and rock.