Photo by Shawn Macomber
Audio By Carbonatix
Midway through Belle and Sebastian’s airy, enchanting thirtieth anniversary performance of the Scottish orchestral pop legend’s 1996 sophomore album If You’re Feeling Sinister at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall, someone in the audience took advantage of a not-so-pregnant pause in between-song banter to shout out, “You rock!”
“That is something not many people say about us,” frontman and primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch replied without missing a beat. “But, yes, we rock. Gently.”
It is true, though perhaps a bit paradoxically so: “Gentle” in this context seemed to be more an attitude or orientation than a descriptor of the performance itself, which — especially in contrast to the intimate, confessional vibes of the excellent and affecting solo set from opener Joanna Sternberg — forged a lush Pet-Sounds-meets-Phil Spector wall of sound during the many signature crescendos powered by a ten man-and-woman strong touring lineup.
Which is to say, Belle and Sebastian continue to lean into anti-rock while in fact rocking. And, so, while it’s absolutely true, for example, that the exuberant harmonic playing of guitarist/vocalist Stevie Jackson — who New Times editor Flor Franceschetti recently interviewed here — on “Me and the Major” or the heartiest apotheotic strum of Murdoch could quite likely beat the devil in a musical duel at the crossroads (“sinister”!), the more crooning, frolicsome musical moments, puckish lyrical wordplay, and Murdoch’s bemused stream-of-consciousness observations on Miami provided a ballast that is decidedly more Lord Byron than Sir Mick Jagger.
The band was too busy workshopping a name for a friendly lizard by the venue door, chuckling at the nudists on boats outside their hotel window, and serving as enthusiastic ambassadors for Glasgow — Murdoch (jokingly?) told the crowd he’d buy anyone who made the journey and told him they were at the Arsht show a fantastic curry — for the traditional rock n’ roll conquests.
Photo by Shawn Macomber
On a more macro level, the show was everything an anniversary tour should be — but rarely is. The arrangements and nuances in the performances of the Sinister songs revealed a group of musicians still creatively restless, still devoted to teasing out new emotions and tones in the source material. (“It took thirty years,” Murdoch marveled at one point, “but I think we’re pretty tight!”) They also acknowledged the anniversary across broader dimensions, with Murdoch offering a bit of backstory before a couple of songs and a video intro of Ciara MacLaverty (the friend of Murdoch’s whose portrait appears on the cover of the album) telling sweet stories of that era’s quivering balancing act on the knife’s edge dividing obscurity and global success. (It is interesting, no, to think of how many people — such as myself — have over the years retroactively discovered the late, great Nick Drake, who died in 1974, through Belle and Sebastian fandom, criticism.)
Photo by Shawn Macomber
One or two songs in, Murdoch promised to stay true to the original album’s sequencing. Belle and Sebastian kept that promise, but the second set of curated classics was more eclectic and curveball-y featuring the title track from the 1997 EP — though apparently recorded pre-1996’s full-length debut Tigermilk — Dog on Wheels; “Another Sunny Day” from The Life Pursuit (2006); “Seymour Stein,” “A Summer Wasting,” and the title track from The Boy with the Arab Strap (1998); “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John,” originally a duet with Norah Jones, and “I Want from Belle and Sebastian Write About Love (2010). Considering the band is playing two nights in some cities, pairing a full Tigermilk set with Sinister, it’s a bit surprising there wasn’t something from the debut, though a glance at setlists from other dates on the tour suggests the “encore” sets are improvised to a large degree.
No matter. The crowd at Arsht was as polite and well-behaved as one might expect Belle and Sebastian fans in an upscale concert hall to be, but enthusiastic nonetheless, providing fervent, rafter-rattling backup on the choruses, coming up out of their seats to sway dance when the rhythm called for it, and setting their rapt attention on Murdoch between songs.
In short? Let’s be cheeky like Murdoch and call the Sinister tour a twee-umph for the ages.
