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It’s a double 30th anniversary for Belle and Sebastian, whose first two albums, Tigermilk and If You’re Feeling Sinister, both came out in 1996. Not that most people heard Tigermilk back then: only 1,000 copies existed until its 1999 reissue. Taken together, though, they were a perfect introduction to frontman Stuart Murdoch’s private universe of aesthetes and misfits (like the girl in Expectations, “making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay”), as instantly inviting as the Smiths’ debut, Wes Anderson’s 90s movies or JD Salinger’s short stories.
The Glaswegians quickly became more diverse and extroverted but it was these two records, performed here in full over two nights, that made them cult worthy. As former bassist Stuart David says in the introductory film, they had a “slightly shambolic magic”.
With most albums the challenge is recreating them live but Tigermilk, recorded in three days on a tight budget by six people who had never played together before, is actually improved by performance. Now a lush, experienced nine-piece (including four of the original six), Belle and Sebastian brighten the colours, especially on rowdier songs such as You’re Just a Baby, and accentuate the album’s range. Though clearly indebted to Nick Drake and Felt (whose mastermind Lawrence is in the audience tonight), it also nods to mariachi on Expectations and Stereolab on Electronic Renaissance. Each song is accompanied by a short film that speaks to the band’s touchstones: secondhand vinyl, indie comic books, 1960s Paris. Welcome to their world.
Tigermilk completed, the show’s second half is a shaggier ramble through the catalogue, including the sublime schoolboy melodrama of Lord Anthony and a burly, chugging Lazy Line Painter Jane. Since 1996, Murdoch has evolved from enigmatic bedsit maestro into a Chris Martinesque people pleaser, witty and camp. He tells stories, he makes comical digressions, he wanders into the audience. He always invites a stage invasion but this one lasts for three songs. It’s the first half that makes tonight special though. Murdoch jokes that performing their DIY debut for the first time could be risky (“All filler, no killer”) but never mind the self-deprecating patter – this joyful reanimation proves that he knew exactly what he was doing.
