Live music review: Belle and Sebastian played Stubbs last month

Despite the unrelenting heat in Austin this June, veteran, Scottish band Belle and Sebastian performed at Stubb’s BBQ with Los Bitchos. The twee indie artists from Glasgow are on tour for their first North American route in years to promote their newest album A Bit of Previous. 

Los Bitchos opened up the show in the midst of the hot June air. The four ladies, though based out of London, hail from different corners of the world, infusing culture into their tracks. They all donned vintage frocks. Cumbian inspired “Pista (Fresh Start)” graced the summer air.

Front woman Serra Petale bounced between her electric guitar and playing the drum set placed in front of her, ponytail bobbing up and down. Reading their Spotify biography, Los Bitchos have slipped in a playful jab at Mac DeMarco, exclaiming they’re “used to drinking [him] under the table”. Cheeky. 

Petale got back on drums for “Lindsey Goes to Mykonos”. The song, Los Bitchos began the introduction, was inspired by Lindsey Lohan, after watching her reality show which took place in the Mediterranean. Los Bitchos played on with their psychedelic Turkish rock track. The girl band  released their first album with City Slang earlier this year.

After Belle and Sebastian had taken over the stage, band leader, Stuart Murdoch stood above the crowd, atop the front monitor speaker for “Wrapped Up in Books” while band mate Stevie Jackson went into a harmonica solo. “I’m never coming down from here,” he started as the band swapped out instruments for their next song. Balancing atop the front monitor was a short-lived endevour for Murdoch as Belle and Sebastian went into the  song, “Unnecessary Drama”. Grainy, 35mm films were projected behind the band, showing a collection of vintage track and field highlight reels.

Belle and Sebastian engaged the crowd in the most endearing banter, on par with the quirkiness of bandleader, Stuart Murdoch. The droll vocalist captioned a slideshow of the band’s day in Austin as the group swapped out instruments. The first slide show showed the statue of Angelina Eberly for a Texas history lecture. “Apparently the jacka** governor wanted to change the capital to Houston”, Murdoch began his lecture. “This woman wouldn’t let him. She fired a cannon.” The audience cheered. 

The next slide showed a fan and a mister. “This saved my life today. Do we have any of these here?” The only fan and mister in Stubb’s was out of order, lamented the crowd.

 

Murdoch continued with the presentation showing a picture of his oldest son with a jar of candy. The singer played a rousing game of Higher or Lower? with the crowd to guess the number of candies. For anyone curious, 264 was the correct amount.

Belle and Sebastian slowed it down for the more intimate ballad, “Lord Anthony”. Minimal projections with deep blue lights as I watched the couple in front of me sway together. The crowd sang along as Belle and Sebastian played their most popular track “The Boy with the Arab Strap”.

Sometimes bands anticipate doing an encore and eagerly take back the stage, other times, bands wait to feed and build the energy from the crowd before returning; Belle and Sebastian were the latter. The talented Scots closed out the show with a three song encore with “I Didn’t See it Coming”, “Le Pastie de la Bourgeousie”, and “Judy and the Dream of Horses”.

All photos by Drew Doggett