rashbre central: Camille O'Sullivan at The Queens Hall Edinburgh

Thursday 13 August 2015

Camille O'Sullivan at The Queens Hall Edinburgh


Another fabulous show.

We'd walked from a prior show across to the Queens Hall to see Camille O'Sullivan perform an evening of Jacques Brel songs. Clearly some of her favourites as she explained how they were played at home whilst she was growing up.

Camille is a well known Edinburgh Fringe performer, and there's an interesting interview about her all-too-familiar starting experiences in Edinburgh in the Guardian, from a year ago.

We are treated to an evening of smoky, jazzy, sometimes raw and sometimes comedic songs, sometimes unaccompanied and other times with her accomplished jazz band.

She could control the whole atmosphere with a wave of her hand, changing the tempo, the volume of the accompaniment and throwing in some bendy blues tones to keep the right mood for the night.

The audience were in the palm of that hand replying with roof-shaking applause between numbers and at the end of the set.

And a different look for Camille, away from the sultry torch singer to a more jazz/rock based appearance, whilst still bringing out her own style of music.

We loved every minute.

Here's Camille singing Brel's Port of Amsterdam, from the Soho Theatre a couple of years ago.

3 comments:

Pat said...

Oh what was the name of the French woman who used tossing Jacque Brel?
Camille looks a little like her.

rashbre said...

Pat Yikes - there are so many? Even 'If you go away/Ne me quitte pas' has been sung by many others. I'll guess at the younger Juliette Gréco, to be sporting?

Pat said...

Juliette Greco it is. Thank you:)