Belle & Sebastian, live in Iveagh Gardens 20/7/2017

In times past I was big into the band Belle & Sebastian, regularly travelling off to exotic places (like Aberdeen) to see them play in concert. Then my engagement with the band fell away as their records started to interest me less and the Bowlie Forum around which my B&S fandom was based was shut down. With bands one has loved a lot sometimes it becomes the case that any falling off of affection leads to a weird kind of retrospective dislike where you forget that you ever liked them that much in the first place. So it was somewhat with B&S, whereby they seemed to disappear from my life and consciousness. So much so that when a Belle & Sebastian concert was advertised here in Dublin I was in two minds as to whether I would go to it or not. In the end I went for old time's sake, concerned about the cost and the fact that this was an open-air concert in a country that is famously unsuited for open air concerts and featuring a band who some might say have left their best days behind them.

By the date of the concert however a programme of B&S re-listening had hyped me up for the event. Sadly it had not engendered any spirit of organisation and I made no arrangements for prior meetings with those people I knew would be attending and plodded along on my own (after first running home from work to feed the cat (name of Billy Edwards), scoffing some speedily consumable food myself and then running back into town again).

It was odd going to the concert on my own. Aside from the fact that I have never previously seen B&S without my beloved (away in Georgia doing her singing), B&S concerts before had tended to be group affairs, either with gangs of Sini-Bowlies or Dublin B&S friends. This time though I was standing on my own, which was interesting in its own way. The crowd had a lot of people from what I think of as the age cohort of people who have been into B&S from way back but also there were younger people too, so they must be acquiring new fans. Maybe they will forever speak to disaffected but sensitive young folk.

And the concert was great, magical even. The old songs are as beautiful as ever. The ones from after I got off the B&S bus are pleasant enough in the live context. Several of the latter received strong reactions from the younger folk in the audience, suggesting that not everyone sees B&S as a heritage act. The interplay between Stevie and Stuart onstage is as entertaining as ever.

Stuart appeared to be the only one of the band who does not noticeably look a good bit older since the last time I saw them, presumably thanks to his habit of bathing in the blood of saucy teenage virgins. He and the others seemed wryly at ease with their not-as-good-as-they-used-to-be status, feigning surprise when people responded well to recent material and suggesting that as they were about to play a new song the bar staff would now be swamped.

One usually great thing about B&S was the way when playing live they would bring people up from the audience to dance onstage for a few songs. Previously that led to amusing spectacles like the time as Glastonbury when some bemused bloke found himself dancing onstage to some band he had plainly never heard of while waiting for the Prodigy to come on. This time the dancers all knew what they were there for and included a reasonable mix of genders (some had suggested that in the past young ladies were much more likely to be summoned to the stage). They were all from the younger end of the age spectrum. I particularly liked the young lady who was living the indie dream by dancing away while wearing an anorak.

Afterwards I did meet some B&S friends and repaired to nearby Devitt's for a shandy. Rash promises were made to re-investigate the post-slide albums by B&S. Overall though I was glad I came out, realising that I would have been very sad if I had not. B&S may not be the best band in the world and they may not even be the one I like the most but there is no other band that has ever meant as much to me, both directly through their music and indirectly through the friendships I have made thanks to them. With regard to the latter point I was struck by how although I did not know the people around me at the concert, they all looked like simulacra of my B&S friends from the past. I was also thinking of the B&S friends who are no longer with us, notably Liz Daplyn, Amy Longcore and Jan Jansen. Godspeed.

Belle & Sebastian are playing again later this month. They say you should not chase the buzz, but I will be there.

Important Concert Features

At the relatively recent Bowlie 2 festival I was talking to someone who said that she greatly enjoyed the Belle & Sebastian set. She was particularly grateful that they played 'Lord Anthony', as it meant she could nip off for a piss without missing any good songs.

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Belle & Sebastian "Write About Love"

Also purchased at Bowlie 2 for old time's sake, this is the most recent album by Belle & Sebastian. I had pretty low expectations of this, partly following on from the complete irredeemable rubbishness of their last album and partly thanks to the scathing review of one of my pals in Frank's APA. However, it turns out to be kind of alright. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that it is an astonishing return to form or anything, just that I do not feel like throwing the CD case across the room when it comes on. There are even some songs I have become fond of in their own right, notably the title track. With that one I just like the interplay between Stuart Murdoch and guest vocalist Carey Mulligan. But I cannot really recommend this album to anyone but the most hardened completist.

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Bowlie 2: Saturday (Part 2)

I am writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998. I have italicised the names of artists who played at the original festival. Read on as I continue talking about artists I saw on the Saturday.

And so to Belle & Sebastian themselves. They were pretty good, but the magic is basically gone for me now, and the stage they were playing on was too large too rekindle it. I was also a bit disappointed that they did not take advantage of Isobel Campbell's presence to do a Spinal Tap and have her join them onstage for a cello solo.

The Great Debate triggered by this particular B&S performance was whether Stuart Murdoch has become sleazy or whether he was always a bit that-way-inclined. At one stage he got some young ladies up from the audience to clap their hands and dance onstage, and he was only really one step away from saying "Now girls, how about if you all jumped up and down a bit? And aren't those sweaters a bit warm?". What do my many B&S fan readers think?

For one reason and another we then missed Jenny and Johnny – Jenny Watson from Rilo Kiley and Jonathan Rice from Jonathan Rice playing together. I gather that it proved very popular, possibly because of the "Hello sailor" photo of Ms Watson that appeared in the programme.

We also missed almost all of the Super Secret Special Guest Artist known to everyone to be Franz Ferdinand, as there was too much of a queue to get into where they were playing. But I did get in to hear their last song, which was 'Jacqueline', one of my favourites. And guess what, Franz Ferdinand seem to be a great live band. Does anyone know if their third album is an improvement on their rubbish second?

I caught a bit of the ever reliable Justin Spear DJing his pop psyche sounds and also a track or two by Crystal Castles, who seemed to be amazingly ravey and not what you would expect at a B&S-curated festival (then again, 'Electronic Renaissance' suggests that Murdoch and co. have at least some familiarity with the world of mad mental electronic music and the drøgs that go with it).

DJs from How Does It Feel? delivered a crowd-pleasingly tarty set of indie-pop classics and likeable sixties tunes, sound-tracking a reunion of those of us who used to post on the Bowlie Forum. It was so tarty that they even played B&S songs the band themselves had played earlier in the evening. Mad buzz.

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Bowlie 2: Friday

Belle & Sebastian largely created the ATP-style festival with the 1998 Bowlie Weekender in Camber Sands. Then in December 2010 they brought us Bowlie 2, this time in Minehead. Read on while I talk about whom I saw there on Friday.

Best Coast featured a former member of Pocahaunted who has left behind the hypnagogic sound for a simulacrum of indiepop music. Not recommended.

Teenage Fanclub played (badly) at the first Bowlie. This time they delivered a more typically high quality performance that reminded us all of why we loved them. Their songwriting skills remain intact, with recent tune 'The Past' tempting me towards buying their latest album.

Saint Etienne started late because heavy traffic (from a funeral, so no booing) had delayed Sarah Cracknell. We therefore got a show with more music and less yap. The set was rather focussed on their first couple of albums, but these are some of the most enjoyable pop tunes ever and left me wondering why I listen to their music so rarely. They also had some nice visuals, especially of some Northern Soul dancing.

I saw and liked The Go! Team some years ago. In the meantime I started wondering if maybe they were not actually that good, but seeing them again reminds me that no, they storm. Their thing is combining samples of brassy stuff and the like with their own playing of instruments and a lady rapper called Ninja (her real name, your honour) shouting over the top. It makes for dance-tastic music. I like it.

The Phenomenal Handclap Band were not doing any handclapping. We filed a complaint under the Trade Descriptions Act.

The last thing I saw on Friday was Steve Mason. He turns out to be the singer from the Beta Band, and he plays music that sounds not unlike that of his former outfit – languid, percussive, daring, inventive, and so on. But I was a bit puppy tired after a long day of travelling and rocking out, so I retired to the chalet rather than force myself to stay up late and wreck myself for the rest of the festival. I hope to investigate Mr Mason's music further in the future.

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This Year's Belle & Sebastian Purchase

(actually last year's, as I bought these in December)

Belle & Sebastian BBC Sessions
Belle & Sebastian Live in Belfast 2001

I have lost touch a bit with Belle & Sebastian. A lot of this is down to their last album, The Life Pursuit. No amount of re-listening has raised it in my estimation – it is fundamentally rubbish. There are a couple of songs on it that are not that bad, but these ones are at best only quite good. With B&S, that is not good enough. So it seems like the great band of our times has gone shite and it is time for me to move on. The band's next album will not be finding its way into Panda Mansions.

The recent release of a record of BBC sessions offered the prospect of re-exploring the halcyon days of the band's past, discovering new versions of some of the band's greatest tunes and listening again to some songs only ever heard on crackly radio. The sessions are, unfortunately, mostly interesting rather than fascinating gems of total genius. You are, I assume, familiar with The Smiths. With them, the radio session versions of their songs were wonderful rough diamond alternatives to the more polished studio versions, with each having their merits. With Belle & Sebastian, though, the session versions just sound like unfinished versions of the versions that saw commercial release. They are still worth listening to, but we will never see serious argument over which is best of, say, the session or album version of 'The Stars of Track & Field'. It maybe does not help that the tracks appearing here that never found their way onto proper recordings are a bit throwaway.

There are a couple of exceptions to all this, mind. One track I am pretty fond of is 'Lazy Jane', a Monica Queen-free early version of 'Lazy Line Painter Jane' (official greatest ever ever recorded). This version really goes for the laziness suggested by the title, with the track ambling along in an endearingly sleepy and low-key manner. It does go a bit mental at the end, in a manner reminiscent of the released version, but it is interesting as a valid vision of another way of doing things.

One or two exceptions aside, the radio sessions record is ultimately not all that. I was glad, therefore, that I got the limited edition of the record that comes with a bonus disc recording of a B&S concert in Belfast (just before Christmas in 2001, and I should know – I was there). This is actually a lot more like it, capturing the band at that time when they had not merely got the hang of playing live but had become one of these islands' most kickarse live propositions. What also makes this a great live album is that you get a sense of how raucous and up-for-it the audience was. Deadly stuff.

One great moment in this was when the band launched into a rather unexpected live version of Thin Lizzy's 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. Raw power. Another was when they invited someone from the audience up to join them (something they do not seem to do anymore now that they have gone shite), and some bloke called Barry joined them (crowd: "Barry! Barry! Barry!"; you had to be there). He then led B&S in a rowsing version of the Velvet Underground's 'I'm Waiting for the Man'. Deadly stuff. It must be weird being Barry now and finding a record released with you singing on it. I wonder does he get any royalties. I spoke to him briefly back then, and he mentioned playing in a band called Da Capo, so he had at least some prior experience performing in front of people.

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Belle and Sebastian 'Lazy Line Painter Jane'

Many have said that this is the greatest B&S track, although I have heard it suggested that guest vocalist Monica Queen sounds almost like someone you would get singing at a wedding. I do love this track though, it just builds and builds and builds and is completely epic in a way nothing by the band ever was again.

B&S Jump The Shark?

Rather than expect you to read another long post here, I could just post a link to the Sinister mailing list archive, where the following formed the bulk of two posts I submitted. Unfortunately, the Sinister archive is down, and looks like remaining so.

Belle & Sebastian released a new album, back in... February? A couple of days before that they played a gig in Dublin. I lived the dream, not merely going to it, but meeting with some other B&S fans beforehand for a walk in the Botanic Gardens before visiting a pubbe for some booze. The Botanic Gardens were great crack… we got to stroll around the green houses and then outside we saw the poison garden and the world’s tartiest squirrels. We were also amused by a sign in the greenhouse beside the venus flytraps, warning that triggering the traps for amusement could result in death.

Down at the concert we arrived to find that support band The Brakes were already onstage. I found myself thinking that their riffy guitary sounds were just what I needed in my several beers in state, but others thought that they were a bit on the lame side. They are meant to feature some of British Sea Power, a band that in retrospect I reckon were not up to that much.

B&S themselves played a stormer… I have mentioned previously that I had become a bit sick of seeing them live. Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the gap had left me much better able to appreciate their live skills and rapport with each other and their audience.

They played a fair amount of songs I did not then recognise, presumably from the new album. One particularly epic unfamiliar track was introduced to me as ‘Your Cover’s Blown’… apparently it was a b-side to ‘Wrapped Up In Books’, a single from the last album. Looks like I may have to start collecting B&S singles again. I was also amused to learn that Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant”is now considered an old Belle & Sebastian album. They did however play more than no genuinely old songs, and hearing ‘Electronic Renaissance’ live means that I can now die in peace.

I could not resist acquiring the album shortly afterward when it became available. You know that “Guardian” newspaper? This fellow called Alexis Petridis wrote a review in it where he warned of how B&S fans are scary people who respond in threatening fashion to any criticism of the band. Well might he know – he is apparently a former subscriber to the Sinister mailing list. Ironically, Mr Petridis then went on in his article to reproduce the party-line position of old-school Sinister subbers, which is that B&S stopped being any good once people other than Stuart Murdoch started writing songs or singing. I’ve realty had it with this lazy line, which neglects to point out the pleasures that derive from listening to a record and hearing several voices singing. Also, the Sinister Position conveniently forgets the many clunkers Stuart himself has written.

I showed my disapproval of Mr Petridis’ article by mailing him a human ear.

Anyway, back to the album. For this one, the band went to America and worked with some producer guy who is apparently relatively well-known, but not so well known as Trevor Horn (producer of last album, keep up!). However, the album is to some extent of a piece with “Dear Catastrophe Waitress”, being heavily produced in a way that previous B&S outings were not. It’s just maybe not as good. Actually, it’s definitely not as good – where DCW was a career highlight, this is the kind of record where you start to wonder whether you can finally give up on your favourite band.

Or so it does on a first listen. Subsequently it goes ever better on the ear, and it is very possible that by the time you read this I will have concluded that The Life Pursuit is the greatest work of art the human race will ever produce.

But what does it sound like? Like I said, it sounds produced. The songs, particularly towards the beginning of the record, have the kind of jauntiness you get from people who listen to a lot of disco and Northern Soul (without actually sounding that like disco or Northern Soul). Later tracks are mostly a bit less engaging or a bit subtler, with ‘Dress Up In You’ sounding the most like something from one of their pre-DCW albums. Some of the others seem a bit unformed, with ‘We Are The Sleepyheads’ being particularly guilty here. And having two down-tempo whingers to finish off the album was probably a major contributor to my initial impression that this record was a bit duff.

I wrote the above some time ago. Since then my opinions have changed. Basically, I now feel that The Life Pursuit is not that good a record. Some tracks are likeable, notably 'Sukie In The Graveyard', a dancefloor classic, but over all it's a bit gloopy. As most of the songs (and all of the duffers) appear to be written by Stuart Murdoch, maybe he should consider letting the others write even more of the tunes.

The packaging of the new records is nevertheless impeccable.