Camera Obscura

Having only one support band is a show of confidence – the main act are informing the audience that their set will be enough to satisfy them for the evening, that they won’t be hankering after anything more when the night draws to an end. In this case Camera Obscura were proven right, every member of the audience was left feeling full and content after feasting on their delightfully twee indie.

Opening up for them tonight were Attic Lights. Perfectly hand-picked, this lot were just the right appetiser for Camera Obscura fans, making their mouths water at the thought of what was to come. However, there was an awful lot of instrument swapping in their half an hour set which, for a relatively young and as yet unknown band (Attic Lights released their debut album Friday Night Lights back in October 2008), always seems rather pretentious. Having said this, the pedal steel guitar in two tracks in the middle of the set was a great addition, and gave the band’s jangly indie rock something to set them apart from all the other bands currently making similar sounds. It was a hint of originality which suggests that Attic Lights have the potential to be better than they are right now. The four-part vocal harmonies worked well too, they definitely were the cause of a large part of the attention and respect given them by the audience, and are another element that provides them with an edge over other groups trying to break the indie market. Give Attic Lights a year or two and check in with them again.

After a tantalising half hour wait between sets, Camera Obscura arrive on stage. Adorable singer Traceyanne Campbell makes some odd but sweet comments about Leamington being a seaside town, and the band launch into ‘My Maudlin Career’, the title track from their brand new album released just a few days previously. Other new tracks on display tonight included ‘Swans’, ‘Honey In The Sun’, and the excellent lead single from My Maudlin Career, ‘French Navy’, but the crowd were much relieved to be treated to old classics such as ‘Lloyd, I’m Ready’ mixed in with the new material.

Looking and sounding something like the chronologically impossible love child of Sleater-Kinney and The Arcade Fire, Camera Obscura come to us from the days of true, pure indie, when it was about being odd not cool, about what you sound like rather than what you look like. Having been making music for a decade now, it’s shocking that this band have remained under the radar and relatively unknown to the young people of our generation. They managed to pull a fairly large audience tonight, at least half-filling the venue, but only a fraction were Warwick students. This is such a shame as unless alternative shows like this start drawing a bigger student crowd, it will be impossible for the union to keep putting them on.

The band’s retro look reflects their old-fashioned values, to enjoy themselves and to pass that enjoyment on to the audience, and they certainly achieved this tonight. Everyone was dancing or swaying along, even the venue’s staff. So often the pressure to be commercial comes between a band and the joy of simply playing good, honest music; Camera Obscura were like a breath of fresh air tonight, reviving the indie scene and giving it new hope. You missed out.