Siqueiros & Campbell

A roller coaster ride: that’s just how can I describe Camera Obscura’s concert. It was an “ups and downs” night with almost an hour and a half delay and I still don’t know who’s to blame.

I can’t say it was Camera’s fault. I was lucky enough to meet them a couple of hours before the concert and get their
autographs. I was pretty nervous given my scotish handicap, but I managed to communicate my idea and shocked state at the same time: you don’t meet talented and beautiful girls everyday.

That said, clearly they were ON time. Maybe it was that poser opening act, Broken Social Scene rip-off, pseudo mexican group “Chkita Violenta”. I mean, please, in their debut album’s label you can even read between the lines: “hey, I’m a rip-off” disguised as “includes BSS’s members collaborations”.

How did this happen? that’s the only thing to look up to: They actually went to Toronto, befriended the guys, learned from them, used the same recording studio, managed to get an organic low-fi sound…but failed miserably in what’s most important in the indie scene: being original. Even their debut album take it’s name from a BSS song, cleverly disguised as ‘The stars and SUNS sessions’ (sons in the BSS song…pfft! try harder).

I am a pro-cultural exchange dude, but this guys are so lazy they couldn’t even put something of their own in there. C’mon you can even just throw some random mexican or typical rythms just to give it some personality, or at least sing in your own languague. What they did, for me, is just over the top mediocrity.

Listening to them is not hard if you imagine they are a tribute to BSS, so after dealing with that, it was CO’s turn. Tracyanne’s voice is so hypnotizing/soothing that all the waiting sore just disappeared. At the end it was every minute of the mysterious delay worth it. It was a symbolic concert for them as well: their confession of being intimidated of playing for their biggest crowd yet was as sincere as our admiration of their lovable tunes. A pretty solid performance overall and an awesome reaction considering almost no one knew their previous album’s tunes.

Oh, and at last my belly button is surfacing again!

(ECG) Neto out