Earlier this winter, Australian musician Alex Cameron found himself playing arenas around the U.S. as the supporting act for The Killers, who were touring behind their latest album. Opening up an arena show is a tough task, especially for a relative unknown like Cameron, but with half the arena still empty and half the people there barely paying attention Alex Cameron would get up and positively own the stage, grabbing eyes and ears with his consummate showmanship and refreshing, off-beat take on heartland rock.
Bubbling under that surface was the fact that since the release last year of his excellent sophomore record, Forced Witness, Cameron’s star has risen significantly, and that was on grand display as he stepped on stage for the first of two sold out nights at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday March 10th. Greeted with a wildly enthusiastic crowd of the sort that’s all too rare for up-and-coming acts, Cameron’s face flashed a sincere smile that made it clear it was going to be a fun night for all.
After opening with the wonderfully-titled “Studmuffin69”, he and his band, which features his “dear friend and business partner” Roy Molloy on saxophone along with fellow Aussie singer Holiday Sidewinder on synthesizer and vocals, glided through a handful of tunes off his 2014 debut, Jumping the Shark, including a terrific rendition of “The Comeback” that had the whole audience moving. Cameron, microphone in hand, prowled the stage like the sort of sleazy old-school entertainers that often inhabit his songs, albeit with a wry edge and some killer dance moves. His whole persona has apparently, and ironically, made the man something of a sex symbol for his fans, as evidenced by a moment during “Stranger’s Kiss” when a stranger from the crowd found her way onto the stage, wrapped her arms around his neck, and did, in fact, plant one on him. To his credit, Cameron didn’t miss a beat, simply shaking his head at the end of the tune and remarking with a grin, “What is there to say?”
Roy Molloy, too, has also developed a cult-like celebrity among the converted, likely due to his essential status as part of Alex Cameron’s meme-friendly web presence, and he proves just as essential a sideman to Cameron on stage as he is off. While he may have spent most of the show seated on a wooden stool, his face humorously stoic even as the band spun out sweet danceable tunes all around him, nearly every time he rose to blow his horn he was greeted by a roaring cheer. He also provided one of the night’s funniest moments, of which there were many, when he was handed the microphone to give an in-depth review of the stool, detailing its multi-tiered design and praising its sturdiness (He ultimately gave it 4 out 5 stars).
The group closed out the set with a pair of Forced Witness highlights, “Politics of Love,” a song that has become “something of a mission statement” according to Cameron, and an anthemic “Marlon Brando,” which Cameron introduced by joking that the tune, was a culmination of his and Molloy’s investigation into “the fragility of the straight white male”. By the time it reached its sing-along outro, the audience had worked themselves into a fever pitch, a group near the stage even jumping in excitement, their arms outstretched. Alex Cameron is more than a little goofy. His music is more than a little goofy and his show was more than a little goofy. But the passion, from the audience to him and vice-versa, is incredibly sincere, and the success looks really good on him.
