Belle and Sebastian
3Olympia, Dublin
★★★★
Everyone’s cashing in on 1990s nostalgia nowadays, but few have done so with the sheer giddy joy of Belle and Sebastian, who are in Dublin to restage in full their 1996 debut album Tigermilk. Brimming with ramshackle charm and beautifully vulnerable pop, this is a warm hug of a show from an old friend with whom you’ve lost touch but whose company remains thoroughly cheering.
Tigermilk was not a hit when it was released 30 years ago this June. Yet its importance to a certain strain of indie fan is impossible to overstate. Arriving amid the full, untethered horrors of Britpop, the sensitive and thoughtful record was a lifeline and a reminder that rock music could be more than a soundtrack to getting blathered with your pals. In a land of bucket hats and beery banter, this was music for people who wore berets and whose reading habits extended beyond Loaded magazine.
As with every long-surviving rock group, Belle and Sebastian have had their ups and downs in the intervening decades. There have been numerous line-up changes and a few iffy albums. Yet the core partnership of songwriter Stuart Murdoch and Stevie Jackson has endured.
Backed by half a dozen bandmates, this run-through of Tigermilk and an accompanying greatest-hits set is a joy (and is followed 24 hours later by a re-creation of their second LP, If You’re Feeling Sinister).
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The concert is framed as a replication of the chaotic recording sessions in which Tigermilk took shape in a studio in Glasgow. An introductory voiceover recalls how the band were put together in a hurry by Murdoch, whose fantastically unfiltered songs reflected his experience of living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a debilitating neuro-immune condition.
His wistful, melancholic perspective is front and centre on opening track The State I Am In. Timelessly poignant, it is a darkly observational ballad about being adrift in your 20s and feeling ridiculous for being so caught up in your own drama.
Tigermilk was a modest album full of supersized feelings. Those emotions remain bigger than ever as they negotiate the catchy angst of She’s Losing It and the glittering Kraftwerk pastiche of Electronic Renaissance. The latter is accompanied by retro videogame graphics that may have induced flashbacks among the wrinklier attendees to the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World and the joys of the ZX Spectrum.
Murdoch’s voice is huskier than on the original recordings and he is more of a showman than his reputation as the patron saint of indie tweedom might suggest. But there is no doubt that this remains music for wallflowers: it is telling that one of the most blistering solos of the evening is delivered by Murdoch on the melodica, an instrument synonymous with musical lessons and weekend band practice.
Belle and Sebastian weren’t particularly political in the 1990s. The most controversial thing they did was snatch a Brit Award from under the noses of Steps when their fans arranged a vote-in campaign.
But as the second half of the concert gets under way, Murdoch has lots to say about the state of the world. He talks about how hard it is to sing certain lyrics now – such as “a future swathed in stars and stripes” from the 1997 B-side Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie.
“It just does not feel like the right time to be singing that particular line. In the 1990s, when I went to America for the first time, people were great. The thing is people are great. It’s just the loonies that are in charge – for the minute.” He urges the audience to “protect their democracy” before drolly noting the irony of paraphrasing Winston Churchill in Dublin.
Part two achieves its big crescendo with The Boy with the Arab Strap, their biggest smash and essentially The Killers’ Mr Brightside for people who own all the Smiths albums on vinyl. Deft as anything on record, at the Olympia it turns into a big group singalong, Murdoch inviting what looks like half the pit up to dance on stage as he improvises a rap about the dire state of global politics. “Down with empires,” he sings. “Empires and coalitions and shady deals from ageing men ... we don’t need them, we don’t want them.”
What we do want is more Belle and Sebastian, which we get as they return to encore with Dear Catastrophe Waitress, another arch, angsty vignette about muddling through your not-so-glorious youth.
Clearing the tables at the end of a brilliantly bittersweet show, it is proof that, 30 years on from Tigermilk, Belle and Sebastian have not changed their stripes. Forget Oasis reunions or Friends re-runs – this is 1990s nostalgia done properly.
