Sinister: Sukie in the Kailyard

[P F]

I remember walking through Glasgow's stone canyons of
air and light, one January day. It feels like it was
morning, but in Glasgow that means afternoon. I was
talking to Cookie and RJG about the history of
Scottish pop. Who were the best, the top 10, the
forgotten favourites? We named many names - JAMC,
Altered Images, Rod Stewart, the Commotions. I was
reminded of that day, that hour, a little, when I
read, just now, on paper, this review.


--

Belle And Sebastian, ABC, Glasgow  
The wonderful wizards of odd 
By David Pollock 
Published: 17 January 2006 

Almost exactly a year ago, a phone poll conducted by
the 
Scottish entertainments magazine The List established
that Scotland's favourite band ever was Belle and
Sebastian. This tells us one of two things: either
that, in the face of stiff competition from Simple
Minds, the Bay City Rollers, Primal Scream and Franz
Ferdinand, the national consensus is that the Belles
are on a pedestal of admiration all of their own, or,
perhaps more cynically (but certainly more credibly),
they simply possess a fanbase whose kamikaze
commitment to the cause outweighs all others. 

In much the same way as The Smiths before them (even
though the two bands are largely incomparable,
musically), Belle and Sebastian draw a crowd of fans
who are bookish and polite, and who measure their
general ordinariness against a healthy sense of mild
disaffection.

In Glasgow, and particularly in the studenty nexus of
Byres Road and Great Western Road, for example, these
acolytes may be identified by their devotion to the
retro style of bandleader Stuart Murdoch and his
long-departed cellist and muse, Isobel Campbell.
Thick-rimmed glasses, hand-knitted scarves and
well-thumbed second-hand copies of novels mentioned by
Murdoch on his online blog are vital ingredients of
this West End coffee-shop look.

It's a fact that Murdoch must recognise only too well.
Towards the end of this show, he asked for the house
lights to be put on, only to remark that the
reflection from so many pairs of spectacles was
dazzling him. Could all the boys kneel down out of
sight, he wondered, to afford him a nicer view? Not
wishing to offend, of course, they consented.

There's something about watching a Belle and Sebastian
gig that feels like being let in on a big in-joke. So
non-exclusive are the band that anyone may join in,
yet the fact that most people just don't get the gag
is conversely what keeps only those of a certain
sensitive, leftfield taste interested. Still, that
amounts to a lot of people: this was the first of
three fully subscribed nights in this large venue.

There was a little something for everyone involved,
but Murdoch, his co- vocalist and guitarist, Stevie
Jackson, and the coterie of musicians, sometime
backing vocalists and occasional string-section
players who form the rest of the band (seven full-time
members, five part-time players) were largely
preaching to the converted.

In their six-album history (seven, if you count the
soundtrack to Todd Solondz's film Storytelling), they
have had many stand-out songs, yet to focus on more
obscure album tracks and unheard songs from the
forthcoming album, The Life Pursuit, didn't invite new
ears to listen. Still, many of these new songs were
the more memorable, like the tight stomp of "White
Collar Boy" or the winsome "Sukie in the Graveyard" ,
about a student who was so poor that she had to stay
in the attic of the nearby School of Art.

Despite the customary lack of volume in their live
sound (a good or a bad thing, depending on the track),
the between-song asides from the softly- spoken
Murdoch and the more laddish Jackson reveal them to be
as amusingly odd a couple as ever. Informing us that
we could download The Life Pursuit to help us sing
along, Murdoch produces a vinyl copy of the record to
check the lyrics, while Jackson half-sings,
half-mutters his own version of "I Belong tae Glasgae"
to fill the dead air. Indeed, the pair's dancing to
the wonderful "Electronic Renaissance" was an
uncategorisable highlight.

The airing of the more well-known "I'm a Cuckoo" and
"The Wrong Girl" may be interpreted as sops to the
less hardcore fans. But a single encore of "Judy and
the Dream of Horses", which saw Murdoch invite a fan
to sing onstage only to find himself upstaged by a
word-perfect rendition, rather poignantly summed up
how much more this band mean to anyone who's actively
devoted to them.



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