EDINBURGH 2019: Review: CAMILLE O'SULLIVAN SINGS CAVE, Pleasance Courtyard
By: Daniel Perks Aug. 14, 2019
Halfway through her majestic, regal and richly coloured concert of highly emotional ballads, Camille O'Sullivan lets rip an almighty scream. She plummets headfirst into an ear-splitting rendition of "Stagger Lee" - the speakers on full blast, the reverb at an org*smic level and the musicians relentlessly piling chord on top of chord. The air is visibly humming and crackling, buckling under the weight of the noise.
It's as if we have overturned an already unbalanced world and are now falling down into some satanic nether dimension, sweating with depravity and debauchery.
It. Is. Epic.
O'Sullivan takes her inspiration for this set entirely from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "one of the greats after Dylan and Cohen". Cave seems to touch "the most spiritual, the darkest part of the heart" and O'Sullivan is hoping to do the same in his honour, bringing her trademark feline slinkiness and her queen of the night styling to the music.
She succeeds. And then some.
Because there are few performers genuinely more at home on stage than O'Sullivan. A true maestra, she instinctively commands a three-piece band and a full stage design with a single look or hand gesture. She is detail-oriented and specific, knowing exactly the mood that best matches the lyrics, the chord patterns and the tone of her voice.
And what a range she has - from liquid gold softs to eruptions of torment and angst and anguish, O'Sullivan's stage presence is a vocal tornado. We are ripped from our seats, with naught to do but hold on for the ride and relinquish ourselves to her emotional control.
It doesn't just take the gale force power of O'Sullivan's talent to keep us spellbound. Seated on a chair, head bowed, eyes closed in reverence for the music, she entices us in with slow, purple songs from Cave's extensive songbook. Her very being is suddenly the embodiment of melancholia - each note a tender embrace, rocking us as we cry tears of white-hot pain. The atmosphere soaks up our catharsis like a sponge, hungry for more until there is nothing left to give.
We were warned this may happen. But we are not prepared.
And just as the depths of our souls are pulled out through our mouths, so O'Sullivan collapses to the ground, panting for each sweet, sweet breath. We collapse too, blood spilling from our ears and pooling around the floor as a divine, deathly offering to a Dark Lord. Or to Nick Cave, a love letter signed with every fibre of our being.
We sing irreverently together - the ritual is over. The love child of Hades and Bastet has taken us to church, hell and back. We are ravenous for more.
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