I Could Be Dreaming

Ahhh, Belle and Sebastian. I could ramble on about them at length... how 'Tigermilk' and 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' so immediately take me back to April 2004, unlike any other album I know of can time-transport me [apart from the 'Lost In Translation' soundtrack/Jan-Feb. 2004. I think there was something about that year]. How 'I'm A Cuckoo' is my walking-around-New York-that-time-I-ran-away-here-Spring-2004. How sometimes I feel like 'She's Losing It' could be my theme tune. And of course, the associations with 'String Bean Jean' surely don't need to be mentioned [Beanie - schedule in a London visit this summer please...].

I didn't have many expectations for the gig, apart from the fact that quite a few people had pooh-poohed the Nokia Theater as a venue. It was a tad commodified and soulless, but whatevs.
The New Pornographers opened the set. They were pretty good, but to be honest I was totally fixated on this old dude with almost a bowl haircut, standing about a foot away from me, getting wayyyy too into the music. I'm talking almost headbanging, constantly shimmying and writhing - and none of it was in time to the rhythm. He was definitely marching to the beat of his own drummer, who I'm guessing was probably on some form of pill or powder.

Then, randomly, this other band appeared in between the NPs and B&S. A Matter of Trust, apparently all the way from Germany. What can I say about them... they made the same joke three times, they spilled water on the electrical cables, the singer was reading the lyrics to their one song off a sheet of paper he clutched, the drummer told us we weren't allowed to blog about their performance [oops] and they had a back-up singer, maybe mid-30s, dressed like mid-40s, standing to one side... I can't even describe him. It was cartoonish. His dance, his occasional "it's a matter, a matter of trust, do-be-do...".

So finally when Belle & Sebastian took the stage, we were more than ready. So were a few fanatical Glaswegians in the crowd [the same thing happened at Arctic Monkeys with people from Sheffield. Why do people think that just 'cause they're from the same neck of the woods as the performers, that gives them license to be complete pains-in-the-arse?]

I want to say now, that Stuart Murdoch, in all his ginger-haired Scottishness, bopping and pogoing around the stage, his fey mannerisms, his wit and whistling and talking about bum-pinching at gigs and getting girls up on stage to do the can-can during the encore - not to mention the fact that he crowdsurfed [yes, really] ... well he had me at his softly-spoken, Glaswegian-accented "Hello we're Belle & Sebastian." Swoon.