Belle and Sebastian: Crystal Clear Beauty

Last night, Hil and I got to see one of those bands that we'd always wanted to see, but never in a zillion years would have seen them in Calgary - Scotland's mighty, mighty Belle and Sebastian!

The venue was once again at the Docks (where we saw Iron and Wine and Calexico), so the sound was assuredly good. However, we didn't factor in the bastardiness of promoter Craig Laskey, who oversold the show by what seemed like five hundred people. It was absolutely ridiculous how jammed it was. Honestly, 70% of the people who went probably never got closer than 100 feet to the stage, let alone being able to see the lads from Glasgow tear it up.

Hil and I, ever diligent and vigilant, endured 20 minutes of insane crowd needling, and were able to get a pretty decent spot near the center, 1/3 of the way from the stage. Through it all, Vancouver's New Pornographers were playing. I think I would have appreciated their set more if we weren't so busy fighting for our lives in the crowd. So many people were cheesed off - and understandably so - 40 bucks each to not even seen the band?

When Belle and Sebastien came on - everything was okay again. Hmmmm - how to sum up the show? Well - they were super tight, and sounded crystal clear. You know all those concerts you go to where you don't have a clue what the singer's saying? Not here - frontman Stuart and sidekick Stevie's lyrics were beautiful and coherent. They did a whole gamut of material too - from old stuff dating back to the Tigermilk LP, all the way to the new stuff on Life Pursuit. It was awe inspiring - especially when they did, in my opinion, their finest track in recent memory: Your Cover's Blown.

They had some good banter in between tracks too, where Stuart proclaimed how one would never hear a B & S track on an advert - but at the same time, questioned the integrity of his bandmate Stevie:

Stevie: "I can't be bought"

Stuart: "But what about the mansion?"

Stevie: "I don't need a mansion."

Stuart: "But what about all the fine Oxford-bred women that you so desire?"

Stevie: "I'll get them with my charm."

Right on!

Their encore was "Get me away from here, I'm dying", and by that time, our backs were sore from standing, but our hearts were light, as the beauty of the melody wrung out smiles from everyone in the crowd.

j