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Friday 30 November 2012

Gigs - BC Camplight - The Castle Hotel



Star rating - 5/10

This was one of those crazy nights where I took a chance on a gig by an artist I knew little about. Sometime it pays off big time, sometimes it doesn't - but it's always interesting. This was not disastrous - not fantastic - but definitely interesting.

Brian Christinzio aka BC Camplight hails from Philadelphia but has fallen in love with the greatest city in the world (sensible guy) and now made Manchester his home. He released two critically acclaimed chilled CDs in 2005 and 2007, which to be honest remind me lots of Badly Drawn Boy in style.  Then he apparently had a breakdown of sorts and didn't make music for a while. Now he's back with a vengeance, and with a new band who are clearly having a ball together.

To be honest their big sound felt a little too big at times for the small back room at The Castle. The drummer (nice Michael Jackson circa Ben T-shirt!) was just awesome but the drum sound crashed through everything else - which was a shame.

BC did a lovely solo number called Atom Bomb which was slow and  melancholic like his earlier stuff. They only performed about six songs so it's hard to tell what his new music will be like. But the crowd adored him, and pogoed like it was 1977 to the rockier numbers.

He threw sweets to the crowd at the end, but personally I would have preferred more music, and possibly a larger room next time. But this is definitely one interesting guy.


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