When I saw an announcement, nearly six months ago, that Belle and Sebastian were going to be playing at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh this summer, I had mixed emotions. Most were good. I love Belle and Sebastian. They’ve been one of my longest-lived favorite bands, and I’ve continued to buy and really enjoy their albums, even nine albums in to their 19-year career. There aren’t many bands who can keep up that standard. It’s also been 14 years since I last saw them live, at the Tower Theater near Philly, in 2003.1 I’d been hoping for years that I’d get a chance to see them again, but if setlist.fm is to be believed, they don’t exactly favor the American South — and this appears to be the first and only time they’ve ever visited North Carolina.
All good, right? Yes, but I had one major concern — the venue. The North Carolina Museum of Art is lovely, but as a general rule I don’t love the type of outdoor shows that tend to happen at that sort of venue. The biggest issue is that it’s almost too nice, thus attracting people who are only moderately enthusiastic about the actual concert. Instead, you get people who are like “Yeah, I kind of like this band, and wouldn’t it be great to sit outside in the grass and have a picnic and hear some music?” It would be great, but for me it also encourages a less vibrant environment than you might get in other settings. By contrast, not many people are going to go stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowd on a cement floor for several hours just because it sounds like a fun night out. (Well, maybe if they’re 19.) But, as a rule, at a more traditional club-type venue, you get a crowd that is there primarily because of the music.
The night of the show, July 31, could only be described as charmed. After several weeks of high 90s and oppressive humidity, the Raleigh weather was miraculously cool and dry. I attended the show with my husband and some of my favorite friends — two of whom brought chocolate cake. I purchased perhaps the nicest looking and best fitting concert t-shirt of my life. And the band was really good.
Belle and Sebastian — despite their advanced ages, which singer Stuart Murdoch joked about throughout the set — sounded great and appeared to be having a lot of fun. With nine albums to draw from, they were able to put together a really wonderful setlist. They favored their two best albums, Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit, and played several of my favorite tracks from those two: the wordy, fast-paced “Sukie in the Graveyard,” the jaunty yet wry “I’m a Cuckoo,” and best of all, the acoustic ballad “Piazza, New York Catcher,” which manages to be both achingly beautiful and contain lines like “Piazza, New York catcher/Are you straight or are you gay?”2
The band played a few lesser known tracks, including two new songs that will be on their upcoming album. New songs are always a hard sell at a live show, but if there’s one thing that will make people sit up and pay attention, it’s playing a keytar. Stuart broke his out for the brand new single “We Were Beautiful,” and it definitely caused me to poke my husband and say “Stand up, he’s playing a keytar!” It’s the first and only time I’ve seen one played live. I would recommend this approach to any band looking to garner some excitement for new songs at their shows.
The other best-represented album was The Boy with the Arab Strap, a disc I tend to forget about. But the band’s enthusiastic renditions reminded me of just how good those songs are. The title track was especially fun, as Stuart recruited a bunch of people from near the front to come up and dance on stage with the band, a scene that recalled all the kids dancing in A Charlie Brown Christmas. And, actually, the piano in “Arab Strap” is kind of reminiscent of “Linus and Lucy,” a connection I’ve never made before. It’s also a testament to the band’s skill and the sound quality of the show (as well as my increased pop knowledge) that for the first time I understood the line in “Seymour Stein”: “He reminded you of Johnny/Before he went electronic.”
So at this point, it sounds like my worries about the venue were unfounded. Not entirely. Despite the great music being played, the band’s obvious joy in performing, Stuart’s charming banter, and the overall idyllic setting, the vibe at the show was actually a little lame. Most people were sitting down, which dampens the excitement and poses a bit of a quandary. If you want to stand, are you being rude by blocking the view of those sitting behind you? Or should you say “screw it, this is a rock show!”? I went with the latter, though my self-consciousness at being the only one standing within a ten person radius resulted in a little less swagger than my internal dialogue might suggest. Not surprisingly, there were also a lot of people using their phones. This is a scourge of modern concert-going, regardless of venue, and I really cannot understand why people pay good money to see a show, and then spend a significant portion of it looking at Facebook, surely one of the least satisfying activities of modern life.
The overall effect of the crowd but a bit of a damper on my mood for while. I couldn’t help wishing that more people at the show were engaging with the music with a bit more abandon. However, my love for Belle and Sebastian’s music gradually overcame the subdued environment, and my enjoyment of the show grew — reaching a peak during the exemplary encore. The band came back out for two songs — an ideal number — and they were two of the best. “Party Line,” from their most recent LP, combines dance music with wit in a way that few bands have even attempted: “Don’t dance near the lights/Cause the bears eat the pretty ones.” And who doesn’t love hearing their favorite song played as the final number? “The Blues are Still Blue” is everything that’s great about Belle and Sebastian: clever and thoughtful, but also melodic and upbeat, with little falsetto bits and a hooky, sing-a-long chorus.
At the end, I suppose the question that I was left asking myself is “why go to a show?” Clearly people have different reasons: to hear music, to spend time with friends, to get out of the house. But for me, I think the answer is that it’s an opportunity to experience a bit of transcendence — to forget yourself, to give yourself over to music you love in a way you can’t in everyday life. It’s a high standard for a concert to meet, and many will fall short. There’s a degree of irony too, as this transcendence is a deeply personal experience, but also one that requires the cooperation of your fellow concert goers. It’s just easier to achieve when everyone around you is feeling it too.
While I enjoyed seeing Belle and Sebastian again after so long, I couldn’t help coming away from the show a little sad that it hadn’t matched the highs of some of my best concert experiences. Still, I never really regret seeing a band I love. And, hey, I got to sit outside in the grass with my friends, have a picnic, and hear some music that I loved — with maybe a few moments of near transcendence thrown in.
- I also saw them in NYC in 2002. At this show they offered the crowd a choice between two cover songs: “Stayin’ Alive” and “Waterloo Sunset.” An impossible choice if there ever was one. While my younger self voted for “Waterloo Sunset,” my current self is glad that “Stayin’ Alive” won out.
- This is also the band’s most played Spotify track. I would not have guessed.
I stood for maybe 20% of the show, which was more than most people, I think. Indeed, very mellow crowd and a placid evening. But the venue also lent itself to that–everyone lugs in blankets and chairs, and there’s room to spread out, and as an extension, it’s hard to get very close. So I wasn’t getting a lot out of standing, we were too far away to see much detail anyway and I am a bad dancer. But there were plenty of enthusiastic standers, you should be proud to be one of them.