Once upon a time in the far away land of Boston lived a young caligraphy major named Larissa. Her fondest pen pal, Shilough, from Pensylvania, greeted her with the wonderful news that Belle and Sebastian were comming to visit. And he was, too. Larissa went looking for tickets. She finally found them in a cold dark attic where a swarthy and sinister character dealt in dreams, and also tickets. Carrick came from Connecticut with Mr. Todd. Shilough was living for the week on a fire escape with a few blankets and a stack of books, subsisting on bread and wine ('95 Chateau Guibon Bordeaux) and counting shooting stars ( two ). Wednesday evening, Larissa, tickets in hand, climbed the fire escape in her go-go boots to join the merry men on this merry evening. We departed on the windy walk to Commonwealth Avenue, all the way, wondering who we would be able to share our extra ticket with. A pair of very grateful lads accepted the ticket at cost (we're really nice people). While Todd was waiting in the out-of-towner credit card line, we proceeded to look for seats. Being the laid back, jaded concert goers we are we hadn't bothered to show up till the start of the show. We opted for the church pews in the balcony, since all the good seats were taken, and since none of us frequent the halls of Babylon the Great. The churchy feeling was quaint, and rather disorienting since it appeared that the auditorium doubled as a synagogue. We sat mildly amused watching the opening act, Containe, somewhat restless for the fact that we saw no well stocked bar in view. About half way through the set, Carrick started looking at his watch, wondering if we had enough time to skip out for a quick pint. Not wanting to appear rude, Carrick didn't voice his thoughts till after Containe finished. When the suggestion was voiced, nall nodded in agreement, and off we went. We found what appeared to be a lovely little pub down the street called Cornwalls, yet were turned out onto the street, since Larissa did not meet some requirement for sitting in their drinking establishment. Silly town. So we were forced to buy alchohol from the old man next door. And we wandered the streets with our brown bag of cider, and wee drams of Jameson's, trying to look discreet and avoid the unwanted solictations of various dodgy looking characters requesting donations for various "charities". We were forced to abandon the cider to avoid any trouble with the lone constable waiting out front. Back to the show, greatly refreshed, we settle back in our pews just in time for the sermon to begin. We sat in rapt attention as the band took the stage, Stevie looking quite dandified with his Edwardian velvet coat and Isabelle, adorable in her crinoline and starched skirt and mary janes. We expected her to start singing Edelweiss, but no, the set began simply. With Simple Things, in fact. Carrick and Todd each got quite emotional during the rendition of Beautiful, for various unrelated reasons. At one point, Carrick decided to get a closer look at the band and situated himself right above the band stage left, or was it right? Anyway, his timing for his move was impeccable since he was one of the few people who had a view of Stuart during his keyboard playing set of songs. Unfortunately the price paid for a good view was that sound was rather pishy. Drums seeming to be louder than anything else. The others benifited from a more obstructed view but a nicer sound. Stuart was the top. He was the Colosseum, the Louvre musuem, and when he sang, he was cellophane, he was chirpy chirpy tweet tweet, the bee's knees (two lumps please!), a turtledove was heard in the land, there were angels dining at the Ritz, and a nightengale sang in Kenmore Square. The show went on. Behold! it was very good. We walked out a side door, thinking ourselves very wise, convinced we were going to get back stage and engage our heroes in a bit of conversation. We wondered around outside thinking up all sorts of elaborate schemes to get back inside. "Look a door!", said Shilough. We approached the door cautiously, the knob turned, and we were in. To be instantly greeted by Stevie Jackson, who mistook us for friends of friends. When we corrected his mistake, he was still happy to chat with us. After commenting on the Yellow Submarine/Paul McCartney pin which Stevie wore on his jacket lapel, we embarked on a lovely conversation about Beatles' movies. Stevie said the dialogue in A Hard Day's Night was "pure poetry". And he and Shilough quoted their favorite lines. ("I'll bet she would be a great swimmer") ("She's a drag, a well known drag") We offered him a night out on the town, but he courteously declined. We next noticed Stuart Murdoch chatting up some lady friends, and wandered over to introduce ourselves. We had a chat about C.S. Lewis, recording techniques, the Tetragrammaton, and the frequency in which they play in Jewish places of worship. We had felt that we had kept him from his lady friends long enough and bid him farewell. We told him our names, and he replied that someone should write a book about us, or in the very least we should form a gang. We finally left for good, in search of a friendlier pub in which we would be welcome with open arms, and eventually returned to our abode on the fire escape. As we watched Larissa disappear into the cold dark autumn air, the rest of us found some solace in the Scottish whiskey that Todd had thoughtfully brought along to keep us warm. That's the story of our first night with Belle and Sebastian. (Carrick's second) Sorry about the silly story from last night. We had just finished off our last bottle of 1995 Chateau Guibon and thought of revolution was in our hearts. "This is the disciple which testefieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true." "And there are also many other things which Belle and Sebastian did, which if they should be written everyone, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Yours truly, Carrick Fox in the Snow Larissa We Rule the School Shilough Boy Done Wrong Again Todd (who unfortunately is off in New Jersey presently enjoying the company of Jenna. Beautiful, only tempermental) ________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. 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