Last night was a big show at the Hollywood Bowl, as Belle & Sebastian played to a sold-out crowd of 18,000, backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for one show only. My wife and I packed some sandwiches and a nice bottle of wine and headed up the hill to the Bowl. We got to our seats just as the Shins began their first song.
We bought these tickets back when only Belle & Sebastian were announced—so we were doubly stoked to find that the Shins were also on the bill. We saw them a year or two ago at the Bowery Ballroom in New York and had a great time. This time around it wasn’t quite the same experience. Blame the fact that they were the opening band, and for most of their set it was still daylight and the Bowl was still filling up; blame the fact that half their songs were brand new, so the familiarity factor was low; blame the fact that, good as the Shins are, they do just kind of stand there when they play. Their live show just isn’t that conducive to a large-scale show, unfortunately. But on a positive note their new songs sound great, and it doesn’t look like their third album will be deviating too far from their last. Depending on your perspective, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. Me, I’m excited for the new album.
For whatever enthusiasm the Shins failed to deliver, Belle & Sebastian made up for in spades. They opened with “I Fought in a War,” which seems the obvious choice for an opener when you have an 80-piece orchestra behind you. The rest of the set highlighted material from across their career, though leaning toward their most recent couple of albums (and just one song from If You’re Feeling Sinister). In large part the orchestra unfortunately served as shtick more than anything else (but as an aside; B&S’s fulltime cellist must have felt terribly irrelevant, don’t you think?). Maybe it’s because there are strings on the proper albums, so hearing the songs with strings live doesn’t actually sound new—it just sounds like their albums. That said, “Lord Anthony” and “Dear Catastrophe Waitress,” played back to back at the midway point of the set, really soared thanks to the strings. Stuart Murdoch's entertaining antics throughout the show aside, this pair of songs was the highlight of the night.
Speaking of Murdoch's antics: not despite nor because of the Philharmonic was this a wonderful show; Belle & Sebastian handled the crowd marvelously all on their own. Murdoch repeatedly ran out into the crowd, and at one point brought a woman up from the audience to dance while Stevie Jackson took the lead on “Jonathan David.” Murdoch had such a connection with the audience that by the shows closing number, “The Boy with the Arab Strap,” the crowd rushed the stage to dance amongst the band. It was a bit surreal to see; in my experience that sort of thing happens at aggressive rock shows, as stoner dudes get up to stage dive. But here the crowd members, well, they just wanted to dance with their friends! In fact, once so many people got on stage, it was tough to tell them apart from the actual band. Such is the community spirit Belle & Sebastian evoke.
[related: a meditation on B&S mixed up in my review of The Life Pursuit.]
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