Results tagged “cameraobscura”

Last night at the Opera House, local concert goers met their match. Toronto audiences are (in)famous for their subdued responses at live shows, which is usually expressed through a steady nodding of the head. Scottish indie group Camera Obscura provided an equally stoic performance, with singer Tracyanne Campbell delivering each song note-perfect yet devoid of any physical expression beyond the strumming of her guitar. Even the infectious single "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" managed to spur some borderline dancing within the crowd, but the band remained workman-like in their performance. However, if you’re one of the people who argue that concerts are ultimately about music, regardless of whatever's happening on stage, then you might not have been disappointed. The band’s sampling of their recent LP Let’s Get Out Of This Country and its predecessor Underachievers Please Try Harder were at least faithful to the recordings. But in that regard, seeing Campbell throw a few lines from Paul Simon’s "You Can Call Me Al" onto the end of one song -- ostensibly to create a rare moment of spontaneity -- while still not breaking from her deer-in-headlights gaze over the audience made listening to their records seem like the better way to experience the band.

Concert announcements are coming fast and furious, now that everyone's back to their regularly scheduled programming. A number of festival dates are set all the way into September already, including the return of V-Fest to Olympic Island on Sept. 8-9. The festival is expanding out west this year, with Vancouver getting it's innaugural V-Fest -- although judging by the current lineup so far (headliners only), they're catering to a much younger crowd than Toronto did last year. Here's hoping that we get a slightly more mature and diverse bill, which will likely be announced in the coming few months. Here's also hoping that none of the bands get the shaft due to schedule issues (hello, Flaming Lips!).

The year's not over yet. There could be at least two more Beyonce/DC3 singles for us to consider for our Best of 2004 list. For those who don't understand what we're getting at, it's a shot at Pitchdork's OUTRAGEOUS best singles of 2004 list yesterday. Those aging cewebrities must not have known that their number nine pick, Beyonce's "Naughty Girl", was an unoriginal fourth single off of an overplayed 2-zero-zero-3 album. Anyway, here are some songs that have no connection to each other: