Belle and Sebastian at The Piece Hall: Glaswegian indie-pop favourites showcase thirty years of tunes
The Glaswegian indie-pop favourites trot out their sophomore album for a celebration that, thirty years on, showcases an agreeable zip to their craftsmanship.
There’s havoc on the railways around Halifax to round off the weekend. A hearty slew of driver shortages and the replacement-bus spillover churn of the Transpennine Route Upgrade have combined to make it a perilous Sunday night pilgrimage to The Piece Hall, patrons jostling to locate the last handful of seats as they trek into Calderdale from both sides of the Pennines and beyond.
It is a less-than-auspicious start for Belle and Sebastian to battle against as the summer solstice unfolds around them. That said, the Glaswegian indie-pop favourites could likely spin an album or two about the domestic grind if so inclined, with such matters firmly in the wheelhouse of their smartly realised craftsmanship. Thirty years have passed, for Stuart Murdoch and company, in a nominal blur.
They celebrate the milestone by looking specifically back, trotting out sophomore effort If You’re Feeling Sinister in full, followed by an extended catalogue-spanning encore. Such nostalgia sits incongruously to a point against the band, less forward-thinking than backward-facing on paper. In practice, it proves more of a low-key triumph for their particular brand of twee chamber tunes; a tacit reminder that, for a late-millennial phase, they held court as one of the most idiosyncratic forces on the musical landscape.
It is a tribute to Belle and Sebastian’s manner of enlivened exhumation that their material is still in possession of an agreeable zip. The Stars of Track and Field remains a wonderfully realised slice of observational nous, stacked neatly against the Boomtown Rats-esque hooks of Seeing Other People and the Smiths-sweep jangle behind Like Dylan in the Movies. The cattiness that fuels Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying, still feels sardonically boisterous in their hands too - as does the effervescent charge behind Judy and the Dream of Horses, built to a rattling finale.
Murdoch lets the credits roll - quite literally, with a video-tribute montage - before the band return for a last half-hour that stuffs choice cuts in from across their catalogue, veering from the sleazy crunch of Step Into My Office, Baby through the squelchy sophisti-pop that fuels a top Reclaim the Night. The band’s greatest cheers are naturally reserved for The Boy With the Arab Strap, though Murdoch draws a close response when he pops up on a scooter and zips around with audible delight. A low-key triumph, then - and one that keeps credit in the bank too.