Summer Camp – Exchange, Bristol 23/11/13

If there’s one thing that’ll get the huddled masses into a venue in time for the support acts, it’s blistering, blizzardly, who-left-all-the-fridges-in-the-world-open chills. Clutching ciders and donned in their finest bobbly hats, Bristol have the itsy-bitsy Exchange decently filled by the time opener Fryars (who’s had a haircut and a change of typography for the new EP) wraps up his set.

Tim Roth doppelgänger Benjamin Garrett, AKA Fryars, reels off elegiac synth pop odes via piano wizardry and the kind of falsetto Everything Everything are famous for, but in order to ensure there’s a bit of movement rather than sombre swaying, Garrett ends the set on recent track “Cool Like Me”, a jangly ’90s dance style cut with funk keys and a methodical joie de vivre that ignites movement in spite of the frigid air.

Swanning through the crowd, main course Summer Camp ascend to the stage. Opening with “The End” (hang on a sec…), the twosome, fleshed out by 2/3 of Brontide on rhythmic duties, get right to business. The track is gristlier than the album version, setting the tone of the evening; where the LP is buffed and pristine like agate, the live renditions own a rougher pizzazz. It sounds like each instrument has been smoking 40-a-day. The fuzz is upped, the distortion’s rampant, there’s more bite and sass. Neither one is ‘better’ than the other, but in a live context we can experience the music a different way.

Clad in a white suit straight from Miami Vice, the male half of the duo, Jeremy Warmsley, reminds us early on – via “Fresh” – that not only is he adept at sculpting infectious hooks, but he’s also a damn fine guitarist. The frenetic funk-pop fretwork on “Fresh” is mesmerising, his fingers flashing fast like fleshy lightning. Other areas of the track are just as impressive, with Elizabeth Sankey’s vocals drifting amongst the Disney strings like a lackadaisical Daisy Buchanan. Being their eponymous second album’s lead single, it’s one that 99% of the crowd are intimately familiar with, inciting (especially for one guy in the front, and no, not Big Jeff) possessed dance moves. Speaking of dance moves…

Potentially the highlight of the evening – no slights to the glorious Summer Camp – is the accompanying visuals. Projected behind the band are clips and snippets from classic films and TV shows from the ’40s-present. One of the greatest joys is watching the occasional moment when the beat from Summer Camp’s music syncs majestically with whichever clip is playing, ignited a feeling akin to the one you feel when the DVD player standby logo slots perfectly into the corner. Watching Jason Segel tear up the discotheque in Freaks & Geeks to “Keep Falling” brings a smile to nigh every face. The clips range from classic golden-age cinema (Singin’ In The Rain) to cult favourites like The Breakfast Club, Napoleon Dynamite and My So-Called Life.

The set itself leans heavily on the new album, with only a few cuts coming from other sources. They do, however, play a new song (possibly called “Hallway”) from the upcoming Beyond Clueless teen film doc, which they’ve composed the score for, alongside a clip from said doc. It’s a great, classic SC sound, and with the added visual element, it’s like watching a live music video. Rattling off “Ghost Train” and “Better Off Without You” towards the dwindling minutes of the show, and capping off the pop bonanza with recent single “Two Chords”, Summer Camp ensure that the audience are enjoying every second.

In the tiny room, revelry is rife. It’s an intimate set, probably assisted by the size and capacity of the venue, and instead of a standard ‘gig’, it feels more like the house party of a thousand expectations. Summer Camp, a far cry from unattainable megastars, appear more like friends of friends, people you vaguely know doing you a solid by playing your twenty first for beer money and totally freaking rocking it.

It’s an evening steeped in the past, for many reasons – from their vintage garb to the kooky ’80s/’90s-ness to the throwback pop they peddle. As such, it’s all too easy to let your mind wander and reminisce about misspent youth and parties of yore, from cake and balloons to raucous sweet 16s and clandestine parent-free shindigs. Summer Camp’s music tends to err towards feelings of youth and growing up anyway, both the good times and the bad, and, when combined with all the elements of tonight’s performance, there’s a distinct coming-of-age flick atmosphere. It’s like a John Hughes film condensed into 85 minutes of fairy-lit bliss.

Photograph by Jason Williamson from Brixton Academy, Nov 2012. See full gallery here.