I know what you did last summer
Have I ever told you about my idea for a teen movie? No? Well the working title is ‘Ten Things I Did in Your Car’ and as you’ve probably guessed, it’s a cross between Ten Things I Hate About You and Dude, Where’s my Car. There’s no plot as yet, but I’ve thought up a couple of gross-out centrepieces, and I’m hoping the rest will just write itself.
The only reason I’m bringing this up, is that while I watch Summer Camp soundtrack the prom scene from Footloose, I come to the realisation that they would be the perfect band to play the big dance set-piece I’ve got planned for the end of it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always been a weird nostalgia to London based two-pieces’ blend of chillwave and synth pop, but on their latest album ‘Welcome to Condale’ the band seem to have ditched the indie and dived full on into mid 80s new wave pop. It’s literally as if the Vaseline’s were bonked on the head and woke up thinking they were Belinda Carlisle.
If Summer Camp’s sudden musical U-turn isn’t strange enough, then the sheer fact that this gig is at Efes ramps up the surreal factor to a ridiculous level. Emerging as the temple of Dalston cool somewhere around the tail end of 2010, tonight the usual soundtrack of Katy Perry and Rhianna has been relegated to between the bands, the pool tables have been pushed back, the chairs have been stacked precariously in a corner and a karaoke machine sits forlornly where the poker tables used to be.
Even the people seem different tonight. Rather than being filled with the usual blend of try-hards and fashion buyers, the crowd seems to be made up of indie kids who spend the entire hour swaying their arms and grinning like jesters. ‘We’ve been looking forward to this show ever since we booked it’ cries Elizabeth Sankey ‘it feels like we’ve spiritually come home’.
She’s not wrong, doing the unexpected is Summer Camp’s modus operandi, whether it’s playing to puzzled tourists in a Clarke’s shoe shop or blasting cutesy pop at a room of hipsters watching the training montage of Breakdance the Movie, you can never really tell what this twosome are going to do next. The set tonight is just as crazy as the setting, veering wildly between highly polished electro pop before shushing the whole crowd so that they can play an acoustic number.
It’s a polished performance, but not a perfect one. For one thing Sankey’s overblown performance style seems slightly out of place with the music. OK, doing the whole Bonnie Tyler thing makes some sense over the new stuff, but on their more downbeat tracks, her operatic tendencies remind me of that episode of the X-Factor where they all go to some location house in the Seychelles and perform Lady Gaga tracks accompanied by a bored looking session guitarist.
It may sound harsh, but it really is a minor gripe; Summer Camp’s slick pop and general geekiness is just too damn cute for me to dislike in any meaningful way. After all, any band who have the stones to have the dance scene from Teen Wolf as their visuals is totally OK by my book.
Summer Camp are playing the Scala on the 21st of Feburary. The band's new record
'Welcome to Condale' is available now on Apricot Recording Company/ Moshi Moshi.
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