Adelaide Festival: Music<\/p>\n
Camille O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s Loveletter<\/em> is an Irish toast to absent friends. Singers Sinead O\u2019Connor and Shane MacGowan, along with David Bowie, are both mourned, and splendidly celebrated, in this mercurial musical tribute .<\/p>\n Written by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n Arriving on stage in a flurry of waves, curtsies and glittery smiles, Camille O\u2019Sullivan, from County Cork, surveys the audience at Her Majesty\u2019s with a flustered exuberance. She moves straight into a snippet of \u201cSummer in Siam\u201d, a perky ditty by Pogues singer and composer, Shane MacGowan . After a few choruses it mashes-up into a more disturbed mood with Radiohead\u2019s \u201cStreet Spirit\u201d (\u201cI can feel death, can see its beady eyes.\u201d)<\/p>\n And already we are presented with all the restorative contradictions of an Irish wake.<\/p>\n Immediately, O\u2019Sullivan introduces her keyboard accompanist Feargal Murray. He is the calm behind the storm, she notes, prefiguring her own excitable improvisations and comic digressions. She turns to the three tall daffy puppet props on the stage \u2013 two bemused cartoon cats and a bewildered dog, dressed in what might well be her costumes. She has decorated them with various trinkets. All drunken purchases, she says, that she made during COVID.<\/p>\n Dressed in a black, studded jacket, she spins around and bends over to show that the skirt no longer fits around the waist. \u201cI don\u2019t look like my poster\u201d she observes wryly \u2013 and the audience warms to her even more.<\/p>\n O\u2019Sullivan reminisces about Sinead O\u2019Connor. That she was ahead of her time; that many young girls found a voice because of her. And Camille herself was one. Of MacGowan, who struggled with illness and addiction for much of his life, she recalls spending his last days with him and his family, before leading into a haunting rendition of one his most poignant songs, \u201cBroad Majestic Shannon\u201d\u2013 \u201cTake my hand forget your fears, babe\/there\u2019s no pain, there\u2019s no more sorrow\u201d \u2013<\/p>\n \u201cThey were all gone, gone in a year,\u201d she sighs. Of MacGowan\u2019s funeral she recalls impishly\u2013 \u201cThe priests disapproved of us dancing near the coffin. But we had been so good for two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n With Feargal Murray, O\u2019Sullivan sings the duet \u201cHaunted\u201d, written in 1986 for the film Sid and Nancy,<\/em> and re-released by MacGowan and O\u2019Connor as a single in 1995. The lyrics carry heavier freight now \u2013 \u201cI want to be haunted by your ghost\/ By the ghost of your precious love.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s vocal range and cabaret presence get a full workout with her highly theatrical rendering of Jacques Brel\u2019s \u201cAmsterdam\u201d. Building from urgent whispers to a dervish-like increase in tempo and intensity, her voice roaring with rage and bitter despair, she collapses in a histrionic swoon. It is a show-stopping moment.<\/p>\n Nick Cave\u2019s \u201cJubilee Street\u201d features some guitar feed and drum overdubs while the ever-versatile Murray moves from keyboard to trumpet. And to conclude the first set, O\u2019Sullivan exchanges her gaffer-taped boots for spangled sandals and Kirstie McColl\u2019s witty teaser- \u201cIn These Shoes\u201d.<\/p>\n With a costume change to red overalls (her electrician outfit she calls it) Camille O\u2019Sullivan returns to O\u2019Connor with an unaccompanied reading of the heart-breaking classic,\u201dMy Darling Child\u201d. It is worthy of Sinead herself. And, with heavy piano chords and back up vocals from the ever-watchful Feargal, she delivers \u201cTake Me To The Church\u201d from O\u2019Connor\u2019s final album, I\u2019m Not Bossy, I\u2019m the Boss.<\/em><\/p>\n David Bowie\u2019s death is another grief. She learned about his music from her older sister and sings the medley \u201cWhere Are We Now \/ Quicksand\u201d with a pleasing hint of Ziggy\u2019s signature vocal inflection.<\/p>\n Drawing, seemingly randomly, from a range of material, O\u2019Connor assembles a sequence that fits the mood she has created on the night, making the audience experience particular and unique. Her playful banter with the front rows, her zany chat and boundless energy, is endearingly eccentric . She jokes, confides, and even channels Mrs Doyle from Father Ted<\/em>, but this mischief never detracts from the gravity and beauty of the music.<\/p>\n Sitting on the floor, as she likes to do, she switches to a short prose excerpt from James Joyce\u2019s Dubliners<\/em> story \u201cThe Dead\u201d and then, after a crowd singalong of Nick Cave\u2019s \u201cThe Ship Song\u201d, moves to Leonard Cohen\u2019s \u201cAnthem\u201d and rings the bells to let some different light in.<\/p>\n Finishing strongly in the final furlong with the McGowan masterpiece, \u201cRainy Night in Soho\u201d and the evergreen \u2018Fairytale in New York \u201cO\u2019Sullivan and Murray conclude with Billy Joel\u2019s almost-mawkish \u201cLullaby\u201d.<\/p>\n And then, immediately, Camille O\u2019Sullivan is off the stage -speeding to the foyer to meet, greet and mingle with a crowd in no hurry to leave. It has been that sort of night.<\/p>\n