Belle & Sebastian

Belle & Sebastian played last night at the Pageant in support of their new album Dear Catastrophe Waitress.

I had to work late to cover for a vacationing coworker so I left directly from work to go to the show as it seemed too much of a hassle to drive home just to leave again. We got to the place and bought our tickets and drove a couple blocks down to dine at Seki's. Seki was really not in the budget but since we were practically right new door we decided to go.While we waited for the door to open for the show we dined on sushi, soba, and tempura.

At the Pangeant once again we had Mina with us so we got the obligatory stares as we entered the venue. After hassling us for an extra two dollars for a "minor surcharge" this guy came buy and rattled off something about "protecting little one's ears" and gave me some earplugs lest the ear splitting din of violins and cellos and acoustic guitars harm my daughter.

Rasupitna opened for Belle & Sebastian. They were very much a novelty two cello, one drum three-piece. Their songs were reminiscant of Tori Amos. And just like Tori the in between song batter and schtick grew old quickly. In the beginning it solicitating forced laughter but toward the end people just stared. As far as opening bands are they weren't bad. They held their own and were at least interesting to watch aswellas provided nice background music.

As Rasputina finished the place was filling up. The girl the next table over commented on how surprised she was to see this many people for B&S. I rolled my eyes at the comment. Yes, Belle & Sebastian are less well known than say Britney Spears but they are not shrouded in this bastion of indie obscurity that a lot of these kids would wish to assume. Sorry, listening to Belle & Sebastian no longer makes you different and cool.

We got Mina a Belle & Sebastian sticker by her request. She's saving it (and others) for a guitar case she says.

Belle and Sebastian took the stage and filled it to capacity. They had a least twelve people playing and suddenly the $25.00 ticket price became understandable. Everytime a new song started it seemed that new band members were popping in and out.

I came to Belle and Sebastian late so I do not have a lot of their albums. I only have a couple and some EPs. So out of the two hours that they played I only recognized a few songs. Beautiful, Photo Jenny, Judy and The Dream of Horses are the ones that come to mind. But it didn't matter, all the songs sounded wonderful.

The band started the set kind of stuffy but gradually they loosened up a bit. A girl tossed her bra onstage and Stuart picked up and said, "It's brown. How indie of you." They also did this bit where they invited someone from the audience to come up to the stage and sing a cover song (they called it a "party piece") with them. They hauled this girl named Amanda off the floor and she suggested they do Abba's Dancing Queen. After a few minutes of deliberation they decided to give a shot. The band did admirably at playing that song on the fly. My cynical self would normally conclude that Amanda was a band plant but. 1.) she didn't have accent. 2.) She couldn't really sing. It was fun and got lots of applause. I wonder if they do this often and what other songs have come up.

It was great show and was only marred by a drunken idiot in the balcony who kept screaming out his request, namely Century of Fakers, over and over and over again. What I find more annoying is the people who yell back, "they can't change the setlist for you!" and "let them play what they want." (Amanda if you are reading this that second actually came out of someone's mouth....again.) They come across so whiny.

After only one encore (sadly) the show let out and we stepped outside to get drenched by the cold November rain. We drove home to get what little bit of sleep we could salvage before waking for work and school.