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Who needs muscle when you’ve got twee folk and
ersatz blues?
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No guitar bruisers, but still a class
act
REVIEW: BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
Hammersmith Apollo by RICHARD OSLEY
TEN years since starting out as a college music project,
Belle and Sebastian look like they could go on forever.
They have never been a band for the macho guitar bruisers, after
all they were named after a sappy French cartoon about a boy’s
curious affection for a giant white dog (remember that stupid
programme: it was on after Why Don’t You? in the summer
holidays, I switched off and did something less boring instead).
But who needs muscle and bravado when you can serve up a class
act like this. Their set at the Apollo is a carefully-crafted
builder, sprouting from achingly twee folk and ersatz blues
into a whistling barrage of brass and guitars with the occasional
Beach Boy echo.
Largely, this show and tour is to promote fifth album The Life
Pursuit, highlighted so far by the bouncy top 20 single Funny
Little Frog. While the rest of the tracks are unfamiliar, they
are not lacking in style. Look out for the bubbling magic of
The Blues Are Still Blue and Another Sunny Day, two sleeping
giants for the future. It’s not all new stuff, though.
While big hits like Legal Man and The Boy With The Arab Strap
are left on the sidelines, smart old material such as I’m
A Cuckoo and Stars Of Track And Field is happily revived. It
still sounds good.
There are times when you wonder whether Belle and Sebastian’s
music is too twinkly for a venue of this size, the stage is
set a way back from the first public railings. At one point
the sell-out crowd are encouraged to whistle a refrain from
a past album together – but those at the front can’t
see those at the back and the intended intimacy is lost. In
a smaller setting, the effect of this set piece would have been
tremendous.
It’s a minor quibble and nobody left the dancefloor grumbling. |
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