I saw Camille O’Sullivan perform in the Spiegeltent last night and I thought she was excellent. I hadn’t seen her show before so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I really enjoyed it. (Thanks to Ratgirl for suggesting it!) Camille made a great entrance dressed in a black sparkly skirt, fishnet tights, high heeled ankle boots, a black basque and swept up hair. She started off by singing ‘Hallelujah’ and it was hard not to be moved by her rendition of the song. She sang like she meant every word that she was singing. After this song she changed tack and sang some lively numbers like ‘Amsterdam’ (Jacques Brel) and ‘In these shoes’ (Kirsty McColl) which went down well with the crowd. We were treated to great humour and singing while being introduced to some interesting characters. I loved the fact that she was up on the stage enjoying a bottle of red wine from a brandy glass in between songs. The energy that she has is amazing and she likes to play with the crowd, treating men and women in an equally fun way. The six piece band made up of piano player, bass player (bass & double bass), drummer, electric guitarist, saxophone player and trumpet player were an excellent accompaniment to Camille’s singing and truly enhanced the mood of the show. At the end of the performance she walked through the crowd with every band member walking after her (except the piano player who was still on stage playing away) as the crowd sang out the last song. It was a great end to the show. As a singer Camille is known for her passionate and dramatic interpretations of the songs of Jacques Brel, Nick Cave, Hans Eisler, Kurt Weill, Bowie and Tom Waits but she is also an actress, artist and architect. I left the Spiegeltent thinking that it was high time I discovered my inner vamp, if only I could remember where I put my fishnet tights and red lipstick!

On a slightly less happy note, Ratgirl and I once again fell foul of the ‘nutter in the crowd’ syndrome. It happened almost as soon as we got into the Spiegeltent, we had barely picked a spot by the sound guys (we missed out on seating) when we were joined by two couples. One of the couples seemed fine but the other couple seemed more hyper. The guy from the second couple was tall and dressed like a biker while the girl wore a black dress with fishnet tights and cowboy boots. Biker guy was so tall that a girl from behind us was forced to make her way to the front of the standing group in order to see the stage. Things weren’t too bad at the start, the girl in the cowboy boots yelled ‘You go girl’ a couple of times leaving the rest of us cringing around her but that wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately it didn’t stop there, a comment about Camille’s fabulous bum was followed by a ‘We love you’ and a few more ‘You go girl’ shouts thrown in. This girl was obviously a fan and knew most of the material off by heart but it’s a little upsetting when someone from the crowd starts singing the lines to a song a few seconds ahead of the person on stage. Luckily this was during ‘In these Shoes’ so it wasn’t that noticeable, the same can’t be said for some of her singing during the softer songs when she could be heard clearly around the Spiegeltent. It wasn’t that she had a bad voice in fact she had a very good voice but we had paid to hear Camille O’Sullivan sing not her. The girl that originally moved up to get a better view actually left where we were standing, possibly due to the embarrassment of the situation. Lots of people looked around to see where the loud singing was coming from and in the end a lovely guy from one of the seated rows came up and asked her very nicely to refrain from singing so loudly. Shortly after that she left with her boyfriend so I don’t know whether she got to see the end of the show or not. It’s a shame when one person lets their unique enjoyment of a show disrupt the enjoyment of those around them.