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It’s been 15 years now since “Belle and Sebastian” burst onto the music scene with their two amazing albums “Tigermilk” and “If you’re feeling sinister”. Several albums later and too many features in arthouse films to count, and the collective have come back from hiatus to perform on an all-too-brief UK tour. The gig was sold out, and the touts had run out of tickets to flog. In the arena itself, there was a surprising mix of young and old; it was certainly the gig with the most diverse range of ages I’ve been to yet.
A word must go to their support “Admiral Fallow”, who with their clarinet and flute ape “Belle and Sebastian’s” chamber music pretensions but have more of the urge and immediacy of their contemporaries “Frightened Rabbit” and “The Twilight Sad”. The standout track by far was “Subbuteo”, if only for its beautiful orchestration. If lead man Louis Abbott’s on-stage banter fell a little flat, the songs more than lived up to it. A band to watch.
But the night was all about “Belle and Sebastian” and though age might have plumped some of them out a little, Stuart Murdoch was still as lean as ever. Sitting down on the edge of the stage for the beautifully lyrical ‘Piazza, New York Catcher', inviting people on stage to dance to ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’ (none of whom could really dance), running up to the balcony, even getting someone to put makeup on him so that he looked like Alex from “A Clockwork Orange” – Murdoch was everywhere and interacted with the audience in the matter that I have a seldom seen, a man comfortably setting into his surroundings.
The same can be said for the rest of the band. The songs were slipped on as comfortably as old clothes. What was good to see was the huge range of songs – such as ‘La Pastie De La Bourgeoisie’, which is from a very old EP, to new material from a forthcoming album. There was nothing off “Tigermilk”, which was ever so slightly gutting, but it was more than made up for by a sterling performance of “Judy and the dream of horses” in the encore.
If there were any criticism to be made of the accomplished performance it would be that it grew a little too indulgent to the end – cheering for all the sound crew and then the band themselves was a little too much I thought – but overall a fabulous performance from a very accomplished band who you could just imagine having a drink with. ‘I’ve got a can of Lilt’ joked Murdoch, coming back for the encore, ‘That’s how rock n’ roll I am.’ When you put on a performance like “Belle and Sebastian” did, I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
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