It’s been four years since Glasgow indie pop/folk rock septet Belle & Sebastian played Down Under and just under three months since I officially became a fan after hearing this. They were the first band I reviewed and one of the few contemporary bands that gave me no choice but to sit up and listen, so you’ll figure that when they announced a Sydney show my presence there was a given, newbie fan though I was.
The supporting act did not bode well for the mood of the night. Sydney indie quintet Bridezilla played for a lacklustre 30-odd minutes to less than a quarter of the house, arousing suspicion that the persistently enthusiastic people up the back can only have been friends and relatives. While the by turns hypnotic and punchy indie tunes could be considered a fitting intro to the music we all paid to hear, Bridezilla’s unremarkable musical arrangements and amateur performance style added an element of frustration and boredom to the waiting…particularly in the case of the extraordinarily distracting theatrical antics of violin player Daisy Tulley. Perhaps the indie-appreciating community were privy to this, because when the lights went back up for the B&S set-up to take place, they filled the house and gave the technical crew and stage hands a better audience than the supporting act.
But if nothing else, Bridezilla made us all the more appreciative when the septet (plus back-up string players) that is Belle & Sebastian filled the intimately lit Concert Hall stage with a quiet confidence and a humble, jovial ease that gave them complete command of our attention for almost two hours of purely masterful indie pop. Stuart Murdoch and Stevie Jackson provided cheerful anecdotes and witty comments in between numbers and the clearly close-knit band flowed through a varied set-list with a professional performance ease that was a pleasure to witness. A carefully constructed set-list included favourites from across B&S’ wide and varied career and from the first notes of the opener “I Fought In A War” the audience applauded its approval of the band’s song choice for each number . Among familiar tunes like “Expectations”, “I Want The World To Stop” and “The Boy With The Arab Strap”, the band included a few plugs for their new LP Write About Love – and although we weren’t as familiar with the new tunes the response only affirmed that B&S have not lost their touch. Perhaps they were a little cautious with their set-list choices however, as it consisted almost exclusively of sure-fire hits, with little variety or respite from the fast-moving pop numbers that are their instant crowd-pleasers, but whether or not there were too many of them, crowd-pleasers are just that and they did their job.
Murdoch knows how to handle a crowd, too, from sitting on the edge of the stage and singing conversationally to them, to allowing himself to be made up with mascara by an audience member, to a run through the audience that saw him nearly fall off a seating divider which he saw fit to walk along. It was only a matter of time before the whole house was on its feet and it stayed there until the very end - and then some…there was no question that an encore was on the cards after the band had exited at the end of the last number and it was reluctantly that the rapturous audience let Belle & Sebastian take their leave after two encore performances.
A successful return that has no doubt re-convinced their fans that more regular globe-trotting by the talented Glaswegians would be more than welcome to this end of the earth. 4/5 stars.
