The Hidden Cameras are set to celebrate 10 years of making music this year with a headline show at the Barbican on the 2nd July.  To further mark the occasion Toronto’s finest have produced a compilation spanning from their home-recorded 2001 debut ‘Ecce Homo’ to the refined orchestral pop arrangements of 2009’s ‘Origin:Orphan’. 

Listen to the ’10 Years of The Hidden Cameras’ above. 


There couldn’t be a more fitting way to celebrate 10 years of dazzling indie anthems with taboo-busting lyrics than with The Hidden Cameras biggest London show to date. The Barbican show forms part of Canadian Blast’s Canada Day celebrations, also featuring performances from fellow compatriots Chilly Gonzales, Woodpigeon and Devon Sproule. In the run up to the main event, the Foyer will play host to a series of free shows featuring former Spirit of the West member Linda McRae, and solo performances from Mantler, Sandro Perri, Ryan Driver and Maylee Todd.  At 5pm, Chilly Gonzales’ critically acclaimed feature film, ‘Ivory Tower’, will be shown for free in the main hall.  The film features yet more Canadian talent thanks to cameos from Tiga, Feist and Peaches.    

Tickets for the 2nd July event, that is also part of Blaze festival, are available here: http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=12041 

The Hidden Cameras emerged from Toronto’s burgeoning gay and indie-rock scenes at the turn of the millennium with an inspiring sound, cleverly crude lyrics and dramatic live performances that the band have taken to churches and art galleries with forty-piece dance troupes across the world. Most spectacularly the band performed in Munich during the halftime of a Bayern Munich football match in front of a crowd of over 100,000 football fans in 2007.

The Hidden Cameras were the first Canadian band to sign to Rough Trade in 2003, rising quickly to acclaim thanks to the polemic indie pop of second album ‘The Smell Of Our Own’ in the same year (cf album opener ‘Golden Streams’).  Propelled further forward on a wave of admiration for their life-affirming live shows and mainman Joel Gibb’s refreshingly confrontational persona, The Hidden Cameras released next album ‘Missisauga Goddam’ in 2004, followed by ‘AWOO’ in 2006. In 2009 they changed label to Canadian independent Arts and Crafts for their most complex and dark record to date, ‘Origin:Orphan’.

Joel Gibb is currently working on the full-length follow-up to ‘Origin:Orphan’, having lent his distinctively rich vocals to a track on REM’s latest album ‘Collapse Into Now’. 

The Hidden Cameras live dates:

2 July Barbican, London, UK
14 July Arean, Vienna, Austria
28 July Emmaboda Festival, Emmaboda, Sweden
30 July Indietracks, Derbyshire, UK
14 August Sonorama, nr Madrid, Spain


10 Years Of The Hidden Cameras compilation

Taken from 'The Smell of Our Own' by The Hidden Cameras

Ban Marriage

Taken from 'Missisauga Goddam' by The Hidden Cameras

We Oh We

Music Is My Boyfriend

Taken from 'Ecce Homo' by The Hidden Cameras

He Is The Boss Of Me

Taken from 'The Smell Of Our Own' by The Hidden Cameras

A Miracle

Boys Of Melody

One of Canada’s most mercurial artists, Joel Gibb is the lead singer, songwriter and choir captain of The Hidden Cameras. Forming in Toronto in 2001, Gibb and his gang of musical provocateurs have created music and live performances legendary for their raucous, unfettered celebration of freedom and sexuality.