Camille O’Sullivan has a superbly lived in voice. Raucous, nightclub style yet intimate and soft when required, her incredible vocal instrument captivated the crowd at the Empire as an early highlight of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. Described as a love letter in song, this gig – titled All Souls - is dedicated to friends in the business no longer with us. Shane MacGowan inhabits the stage at the start with a truly haunting rendition of Haunted. Giving us brilliant, slightly left field anecdotal details throughout, O’Sullivan reveals she was great friends with the Pogues frontman, sang with the band early in her career and clearly misses him a lot. She reached out with her hands to the fans as she sang lines like ‘I want to be haunted by the ghost/of your precious love’. The song, a duet with MacGowan and Sinead O’Connor, managed to remember another of O’Sullivan’s greats.
Dressed in holey tights and attractively sleazy boudoir chic, Ms O’Sullivan reinvented Kirsty McColl’s In These Shoes, with sauciness intact. Her voice also did more than justice to Amsterdam, a Jacques Brel classic revisited by David Bowie, strumming with the sailors and their drinks in the docks. It was atmospheric, harsh when necessary and took you to this different world. That’s the ability O’Sullivan has, of taking a cover and making it her own, with theatrical skill. And she is an award-winning actor too so no surprise there.
There was even whimsy, when we were introduced to the animal head mannequins bought during lockdown and Camille’s alter ego, Margaret, who is supposed to keep things in check. Happily, she doesn’t.
We got some Tom Waits, beautifully sung, and Nick Cave’s Jubilee Street. This was a great rendition, raw, moving and delivered in O’Sullivan’s inimitable urban style. The lines about the supposedly good people on the street ‘who ought to practise what they preach’ instead of presumably criticising the working girl heroine Bee struck home with a certain poignancy.
Later, Camille O’Sullivan had morphed into a night club chanteuse outfit, a bright red evening dress with black detail. The music continued apace with work by Radiohead among others. Feargal Murray, O’Sullivan’s long time collaborator, accompanied with great musicality and understanding.
Jane Hardy
