Sinister: Brixton's where B&S were at (reporting back)

[Kenneth P Y Chu]

An account of the Brixton gig, "au contraire" to the rest of the reportings 
back, I am going to target on what I liked about the gig rather than the 
bits I hated, an Anti-Christ of Mister Carter, if you may.

On the outside, the Brixton academy looks like it belongs to the 80s, 
"BRIXTON ACADEMY" written with huge neon lights, or maybe it was just very 
bright lights, and faded red plastic letters making up the name of the act 
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN, possibly the same plastic Bs, Ns and As that once 
informed people of a BANANARAMA act.

Once inside, you realised why it was called Brixton academy because it was 
decorated like an academy of the ancient Greek, and once properly inside, 
you realised that you were actually outside because it was an open-top 
venue, then looking up and you realised that you were actually really 
inside, afterall, as it was only made to look like open-top and there was a 
ceiling, afterall.

I only caught the end of Life without Buildings, but I assumed that they 
were rubbish because Life without Buildings would be rubbish, and there was 
this woman screaming things.. Belle and Sebastian came on without much of a 
long pause (we only had to wait for the Strange Fruit crew backstage to 
hurry up and drink up their pints)

The band exploded with Sleep The Clock Around, everytime I hear that song I 
can't help but make Clanger noises, but I refrained, while the band 
chorused, Sturan (his name is STURAN!) was so touched by the excited crowd 
he was lost for words, but then found it again.

I enjoyed the crowd's many, and varying, interpretation of a latino beat, to 
the untrained ear it sounded like clapping at random semiquaverwhatsits of 
choice.  The guy next to us who came up with the most intelligent hackles, 
and the couple in front of me who liked kissing very much, either that or 
they liked obscuring my view a lot.  All in all a game crowd.

Belfast Bob's final finale endgame finishing guitar solo on their encore 
cover of "Another girl, another planet" had my head twitching in glee like I 
have never done since way back in my rock city going days, and made my day, 
that man can wank a guitar well.

My hero of the night, as usual however was Mick Cooke - everytime Sturan 
forgot a line, that Isobel ran out of breath, that Stevie wasn't near enough 
the microphone to sing into it because he ran off somewhere, I would always 
be safe in the knowledge that Mick was putting on a flawless performance.  
The trumpet sounds, liquid silver, never over-eager to steal the limelight 
but always capturing my heart and soul.  Also the way that Mick awkwardly 
stood holding his instrument whenever he wasn't playing makes me giggle, if 
I were a girl I'd marry the guy, mmm a man who has full control of his 
respiratory organs.

But I'm not a girl and so I'd marry Isobel instead, she was looking a lot 
happier than she had been in her previous gigs, yet still always full of 
professionalism, you can tell from her look of full concentration, even on 
instruments such as the Kewsii (kinder egg with sand in it) you can see her 
giving her all.

She gets lonely when she isn't playing, and sometimes she'd sit on her own 
on the steps, and I just couldn't help but wish that I were there to sit 
with her, to talk to her, and tell her that she was the special little 
princess that she is, maybe she would raise a smile then.

During the main part of the gig (about 8 songs), whenever a song from an 
album was coming on, the colour of the background light reflected the colour 
of the album cover (Tigermilk-blue IYFS-red etc.), which I found very lovely 
but I am not sure if it was deliberate as later on this pattern ended.  I 
almost had an epileptic fit during Legal Man from the strobe lighting, but 
then I realised that it was just my dancing.

I could go on, but I'll stop the gig venue pun this time was: "LA to New 
York, San Francisco back to Brixton"... just brilliant.

Hugs and Red Bulls
Ken
P.S.: re: background light colours, I see that Zoe also spotted this 
pattern.. maybe it *was* deliberate afterall!  It was a very nice touch.

P.S.2: Now that all of the B&S Treasure Hunt trophies have been found, I 
wonder if the answers to the treasure hunt clues will be revealed any time 
soon.

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