Satisfying theatrical performance for Cave’s songs
Camille O’Sullivan, Festival of Voice, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
TAKING on the songs of Nick Cave is no mean feat – it’s hard to think of a more magnetic stage presence, but Camille O’Sullivan has been singing his songs for years so a whole show based around his music is a logical next step, and yes – she has enough charisma to pull it off.
The mood is set beautifully: the moon glints through projected clouds, and the band enter in near darkness.
Throughout the show, lighting adds the kind of dark and dreamy drama these songs evoke, and O’Sullivan’s performance is satisfyingly theatrical, drawing on her cabaret background.
At times, she perches on a chair, almost in the audience; at other moments she rocks it up, springing and These are not faithful reproductions striding about the stage as if conjuring – they are new interpretations, shot the songs to life. through with genius. The Ship Song –
The band seem part of her: she directs perhaps her best known Cave cover – is them at every turn, signalling rises and different again from the recorded falls so that the show swoops between version, segueing between delicate intimate whispered moments and intimacy and a rocking guitar solo. riotous, loping crescendos. The only awkward moments come
Before Stagger Lee, she says a quick when she tries to get the audience prayer for daring to tackle this big and singing, the result being a timid crazy song, but she pulls it off, her voice whisper, yet the magic persists right to a reminder that there is a beauty in the end of this long and immersive imperfection that will never be matched experience. by polished talent show singers: as she If there is anyone who can sing Cave rises from a whisper to a hoarse yell, and without making you wish you were from sweetness to savagery, you are listening to Cave himself, it is hypnotised by the way she seems to O’Sullivan. inhabit and embody each song. ■ Jenny White
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