If I had told you a year ago that I was going to see a
Camila Cabello concert, I bet that a fair few of you would have looked at me
blankly, assuming this was yet another of the up and coming artists that I occasionally
go to review. However, I reckon I’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t
know her name today, or was at least familiar with Havana. Now as one of the most popular young female artists of our
era, I felt blessed to see her perform at her first London headline show at the
O2 Academy Brixton.
Brixton was a venue that I’d not yet visited (not for lack
of trying – I’d wanted to see Kesha here a few years ago but was disallowed due
to the area being ‘dangerous’ – pish posh!) and turned out to be much larger
than I’d anticipated, with a capacity of around 5,000 people, when I’d expected
something of similar proportions to Shepherd’s Bush. Furthermore, tonight’s
show was sold out, meaning that there would be 5,000 of us crammed into the
venue.
By the time I arrived after work, the queue to get in was, I
kid you not, stretching the whole way around the block, almost completing in a
square. Entering the venue, the floor had already filled up quite a way so I
took a spot near to the back with somewhere to rest my reviewers notebook.
First on was New Zealand band Drax
Project, who played a couple of their own songs (including snazzy saxophone
solos) and some covers, like Ginuwine’s Pony
(Magic Mike, anyone?)
At 9pm sharp, the lights went down and a sea of mobile
phones rose from the crowd – it seemed like almost everyone was recording the moment
the superstar would step onto the stage. We were given a 25 second video
countdown of Camila’s eye opening as we hit zero, before the lady of the hour
herself stepped out on stage in a flowy trouser suit and corset combo. This
being the Never Be The Same tour, she kicked off with the titular track. I love
it when artists sound just as good live as they do on a record!
Before the first track was even over, she greeted the
audience, something that I truly appreciated in a world where many artists just
come on, do the usual ‘HOW YOU DOING LONDON’ bit in the middle of their set and
that’s it. She actually cared. We moved on to Control, complete with slick choreography and a bit of break
dancing (from back up dancers, not Camila herself – something I imagine would
be pretty hard to do when singing at the same time!)
If you’ve read some of my other blog posts, you’ll know that
I sometimes forgive artists for lip-syncing so long as they put on a good show
in terms of choreo and visuals, so imagine how pleased I was to see Camila
actually singing, as well as dancing her socks off! And all the while making
sure to interact with the crowd, seemingly as happy to be with us as we were to
be with her.
This was one hell of a hi-tech set, something I would have
expected more for an arena show (of which I’m sure Camila will be doing many of
in her future) with pretty much every song prefaced by a video intro. Given that
she has thusfar only released one album, most of the songs came from that, but
we also had added bonuses of songs she’d featured on, including a track I’m a
big fan of – Machine Gun Kelly’s Bad
Things; as well as a beautiful cover of Elvis’ I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.
Did I mention Camila cut her teeth on the X-Factor USA? Yes,
this girl can sing, and this was equally evident on the fast poppy tracks as
the deep ballads like Consequences,
which I found out a few months ago was written by a country songwriter (you canread more about that experience here). She has a beautiful vocal range which
radiates across the venue, even more so than the thousands of fans screaming
her songs back at her.
Her interaction with the crowd was stellar – she told us
that All These Years was her
favourite song off of the album, and prefaced Something’s Gotta Give by saying that it had been written at a
moment in time when she had to choose between love and fear – loving herself
enough to get out of a toxic relationship or staying in it because she was
afraid to get out. Recently, she said, this song had taken on a different
meaning to her, which became evident as footage from the aftermath of school
shootings, Black Lives Matter and the March for our Lives played across the
screen.
It seemed prevalent that her next song was entitled Scar Tissue because by that point it had
become evident to me that her genuine nature and focus on issues bigger than herself
was more than skin deep. It struck me that she is very much someone who will
have the power to change things with her voice and status in society, and that
seems to start with her fans, as at the end of this song she implored fans to
make a promise to themselves to love themselves. In a world in which social
standing and popularity has never been more important, it truly is essential
that people that today’s youth listen to, like Camila, are there to be this
voice and a reminder that things like this are important. Anyway, enough with
my preaching, and on with the show!
We moved on to the catchy In The Dark (frankly, all her songs are catchy – I’m running out of
ways to describe them!) in which she asked the venue to turn off all the
lights, so we were singing along just with the light of those many, many phones
– an apt moment for all of us, I’d say. Again, the genuine gratitude for her
fans shone through on Real Friends where
a group of fans were brought on stage to sing along.
She then brought on perhaps a more famous friend in the form of UK star Anne Marie for the latter’s hit Rockabye, much to the pleasure of the audience. Again, we had some more non-album songs in her collaboration with Major Lazer, Travis Scott and Quavo, Know No Better; and her soundtrack single with Grey Crown, which certainly provided me with some amusement as her backup dancers came on stage dressed not unlike dementors and seemingly unable to see as in spite of the slick choreo, there was some running into one another.
The show began to end with the sultry Into It in which we were treated with a mini speech about loving
one another, in which Camila reached for a Pride flag from an audience member to
make sure that each and every audience member was included. The penultimate
song was her duet with Pharrell Sangria
Wine (which interestingly comes up just as ‘sangria wine camila cabello’
when searched on YouTube) complete with the Sangria Wine dance which I’m afraid
still has a bit of a way to go before it becomes as well known as the Harlem
Shake or Gangnam Style.
Of course there was no song that we could end on except Havana, with the crowd going absolutely
mental as Camila tested out some salsa moves on stage. And that was it – we’d
heard all of the songs on her album and then some, and had a great time while
doing so. As well as being an astoundingly good singer, she just seems like a
genuinely nice person, and I can’t commend her highly enough for that. God
knows how much that genuine attitude will help those fans that need it.
I hope you enjoyed
today’s concert review! This month sees at least two more concerts with
honestly some of the biggest names in the business (and I’ll be seeing Camila
perform again soon – hint hint) so stay tuned to make sure you don’t miss any
upcoming reviews! You can stay in touch by following this blog, or my Twitter
@CiarasCountry, and make sure to drop me a comment below to let me know what
you think of Camila!
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