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Summer Camp

@ Harley, Sheffield, 19 March 2012
4 stars

by John Murphy

Summer Camp

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It's been a delight over the last couple of years to watch Summer Camp's evolution. Just two short years ago, they were pretending to be a 7 piece Swedish pop collective while releasing eerie covers of '50s doo-wop classics on their MySpace page.

Since then, Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley have become one of Britain's best-kept secrets. A string of superb singles last year culminated in the release of their debut album, Welcome To Condale, a collection of truly timeless pop songs that sounded like the secret love-child of Blondie, Talking Heads and The Beach Boys. Even Odd Future's Tyler The Creator became an unlikely fan.

Live too, they're grown beyond recognition from their awkwardly adorably days. William Bowerman on drums seems to be the missing piece in the jigsaw, lending the duo's songs a muscularity and presence, while Sankey has become a supremely confident front-woman, prowling the edge of the stage as well as chatting away easily to the audience.

That's not to say that an endearingly ramshackle element remains - tonight's gig at The Harley is nearly stymied by the sound equipment breaking down at the start of opening track Welcome To Condale. "Jeremy's monitor sounds like it's farting" says Sankey, before an uncertain few minutes as drum pedals are tested and various technical terms are bandied between stage and sound desk.

Thankfully, with that little hiccup soon solved, it's left to us to appreciate just how good the Welcome To Condale set sounds after months of touring it around the world. Nobody Knows You nearly smacks you in the face with its raw power, while Round The Moon still sounds like the most blissfully romantic moments of Bruce Springsteen relocated to mid-80s middle America.

Best of all, Warmsley and Sankey know how to write proper pop songs - Down is a simply superb 2 and a half minutes whose bouncy melody is offset by some gloomy lyrics about disillusionment and unhappiness. It's a trick repeated by Losing My Mind, one of the sweetest break-up songs you'll ever hear, tonight performed, to spine-tingling effect, completely unamplified in the middle of the packed crowd.

There's also a hint of Summer Camp's future direction with the debut of two new songs: Hunt and Give Me Life - the latter already sounding like the soundtrack to a long hot summer. It's clear that the duo are looking at a more dancey direction for the next album (taking their cue from Done Forever from Condale), and it's a sound that suits them down to the ground.

The evening comes to an end with another demonstration of Warmsley and Sankey's songwriting genius in the best song of 2011, Better Off Without You, and the ode to obsessive love that is I Want You, all accompanied, as the songs have been all evening, by a backdrop of clips from kitsch '80s films. As we watch Judd Nelson punch the air from The Breakfast Club, it's almost impossible to stop doing the same.

Sadly, there was no time for an encore (other dates on the tour have apparently been treated to an acoustic version of Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere) but no matter - it's been a privilege to watch Summer Camp grow and develop over the last few years, and you can only imagine where they'll go if they continue this kind of trajectory.

Summer Camp played: Welcome To Condale, Last American Virgin, Nobody Knows You, Round The Moon, Down, Done, Forever, Hunt, Summer Camp, Life, Losing My Mind, Ghost Train, Better Off Without You, I Want You

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