Belle & Sebastian - live at Glasgow ABC

I'm a big fan of B&S. They've written about 40-50 of my favourite songs on two of my favourite albums and several cracking EPs. Sadly, I feel that their is a dark side to their muse. I'm not too keen on the last two albums (fold your arms..... and dear catastrophe waitress) for various reasons. I find chalet lines from fold... too upsetting to listen to and I'm a cuckoo just annoys me in an existential way.

I've been a fan since 1998 (maybe earlier). I bought the boy with the arab strap the week it came out and it had been one of my favourite records since then. If I give someone that record it probably means that I like them. Somehow I managed to avoid seeing them live (although I might have seen them play once in ashton lane. I'm not sure.

It was with some trepidation that I went to tonights gig. I've been told that the band are often shambolic when they play live. Basically shit.

I was very pleasantly surprised. They opened with a track from if you're feeling sinister, possibly stars of track and field and they were bloody good. String section. Trumpets. I think they must have been practicing. (they played all of that album last year at a special show in london).

The band were tight and the sound was good. The string section was attractive. Stuart was an entertaining frontman making sick jokes that I didn't really expect. Crowd interaction was present and correct. Sadly, the crowd at the gig was just as I expected. Static. No rhythmic movement to be seen at all. Lots of girls (thankfully) but no real party atmosphere.

The new songs were good, boding well for the new album. I don't really like the 'crazy frog' song. It's just cheezy. We did get several classic tracks; the state i am in which he dedicated to his 'very hetrosexual' brother, dog on wheels, 4 more from sinister and dog on wheels. We also got the 'gay disco' (as my mate put it) number from tigermilk which worked surprisingly well and i'm a cuckoo which wasn't as shit as i feared.

All in all, a good show. I'll buy the new album and go and see them again. The only low point was the lack of songs from the boy with the arab strap. It would be nice if Isobel Campbell was still in the band but that ain't gonna happen.

phunky