After the first two songs Stuart said “We haven’t been here in a while, except from last night (he joked), but apart from that, years, it’s good to be back.” The Scottish, Indie pop 7 piece band, dressed in their usual bland but smart outfits. The crowd being mostly middle aged but with a few teenagers, Stuart joked with this “I recognize a few faces from years ago but a few youngsters which is always nice.”
Camden roundhouse holding so much history was the perfect venue for Belle and Sebastian to play, as they have been around for quite a few years, this being shown when Stuart jokes “I still feel like I’m in 1985 with Rough Trade Records, performing tracks around the same time as artists like The Smiths” causing a huge cheer from the crowd, obviously fans of the Rough Trade record label. The sound was worrying as the support artist was so loud and unbalanced with instruments and vocals however Belle and Sebastian sounded excellent, with having so many instruments and 3 and sometimes 4 vocalists I was worried how it would sound but it sounded excellent. The lighting was disco type lighting with complimented Stuart’s enthusiastic dancing especially in songs like “Sukie in the Graveyard” which seemed to have been sped up and made a bit more exciting in a live environment. The atmosphere in the venue was odd, people were crazy about them and absolutely loved them however it took people time to start some sort of movement however who could resist dancing when Stuart did a competition for 4 lucky people to dance on stage with him, claiming “I’m in the mood for dancing, like The Nolan’s” however I was unfortunate in this competition. There were a few beautiful moments when Stuart’s perfect sounding vocals were spotlighted in some songs, especially in the slower songs performed on the Piano like “We Rule the School”.
When I left I was very happy with the set-list performed by the band, as their previous night had a more downbeat set. The band were heavily involved with the crowd and had so much crowd participation, examples of this were asking the crowd who’s going to the Olympics causing a show of hands and then asking specific people to shout out events, this always makes the crowd feel more in harmony with the band which is something good to achieve at a concert, Another example making a crowd member apply mascara to his eyes to relate to the lyrics “Blue mascara running over your eye” in the beautiful song “Lord Anthony”. I feel the best thing about the crowd participation was letting the crowd change their set-list, the several cry’s for crowd favorite “I’m a Cuckoo” was enough to persuade front man Stuart to change his two song encore to begin with this, this song causing the best atmosphere from the crowd on the evening causing them to dance, some almost as bizarre as the front man’s. My personal favorite performance was “Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying” a shock for me as I didn’t expect this song to be amongst the set list, Stuart demanding “I want some help with this one”, and he got exactly what he asked for as the crowd of 5,000 roared it back at the front man causing the biggest smile on his face the whole evening.
Having never seen Belle and Sebastian before and loving them for years I didn’t really know what to expect but I was very impressed with the gig, I disagree with Stuart’s joke “We’ll probably be supporting Reef next year” as I believe they deserve a venue with a higher capacity, having easily sold out all 3 nights at the Roundhouse. The only thing that would have made the night better would have been the support artist; apart from that I don’t think anything needed to be changed.
Rating: 4/5.
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