I was one of the (very few) people who criticized Camera Obscura after their show at the Black Cat last July. More accurately, I criticized Camera Obscura's lead singer, Tracyanne, who came across as someone who didn't want to be performing at all. It's not that I or the audience was bored; it was Tracyanne who came across as the one who was bored. On that night in July, she elevated indifference to aloofness, and she was even kind of bitchy toward the Black Cat audience at times. I found it to be a real turn-off. In my post-show post, I conjectured that maybe she was just having a bad day or not feeling well or was tired from touring too much. Overall, I felt that Camera Obscura could perform better. Others who attended the same concert disagreed with my assessments on all points.
Fast forward six months. I'm happy to report that Camera Obscura put on an excellent show at the 9:30 Club. The sound mix (for CO) was well done. Much better than the Black Cat show all around, both in terms of performance and sound. There was still an air of indifference around Tracyanne, but not as much hostility, though she did get a little hostile when she responded to the heckler who wanted to hear the "good stuff." "What have we been playing? The crap stuff?" she retorted. Overall, her audience interaction was much improved. She nearly floored me when she actually smiled as she left the stage after the encore. Normally, I think she performs as though she were at a funeral. I suppose it's possible she was smiling just because it was over. I'd like to think she was smiling because she was satisfied with a job well done and was appreciative of the applause.
Sorry if I helped to over-hype The Essex Green. I still think they are the bee's knees though. Maybe their live show isn't exactly scintillating, but I love-love-love their lyrics, their melodies, and their harmonies. For the most part, they sounded a lot like their albums. Only a couple songs at the end differed much at all, notably "Sin City" (not necessarily improved, I think) and the final song of the set whose name is escaping me at the moment (which was "rocked up" to close the set). For what it's worth, their sound mix was way off on a lot of the songs. As you may know, some of their songs have female lead vocals and some have male lead vocals, while trading off background vocals, and the sound engineer obviously couldn't keep up as to who was lead and who was background on which songs. There were several songs toward the end of their set where the male background vocals were louder than the female lead vocals.
Overall show grade: Very good, but I don't expect it to be on anyone's list of the best shows of the year, certainly not mine. Camera Obscura exceeded my expectations. The Essex Green fell a little short, but they came close to meeting my expectations, I think.
