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Blog: Belle And Sebastian And Emotions
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We went for BEERS in a pub nearby beforehand, and I found myself unable to tell who was on their way to the gig (NB with some notable exceptions e.g. Mr S Hewitt uncovered outside) and who was a middle-aged person who just LOOKED like they once owned a stripey t-shirt. One we reached the venue it was the same experience - as ever, there were quite a lot of people wearing appropriate band t-shirts, but otherwise it looked like Just A Bunch Of People. All right, trending towards SHALL WE SAY late youth hem hem, but it didn't LOOK like the obviously indiepop crowd that you'd expect at e.g. the Allo Darlin' gig last year.
I think this was evidence of how different Belle & Sebastian were all those long ago years - they didn't come to prominence through the music press (who HATED them at the time, mostly BECAUSE they had not given their permission for it to happen) but were one of the very first bands to get known through the INTERNET. They were the TOAST of the mailing groups - uk-indie what I was on was FULL of them, and indeed "meat-ups" were organised by the members specifically to go and see them, and OBVS the sinister mailing list was set up very early on too. Nowadays having internet marketing is DE RIGEUR, but back then it felt amazing that there were people all around the country getting to know each other through this band that was being largely ignored by the indie music press. It was like the fanzine networks that had existed for years, but not JUST for the cool people who knew each other in each town's designated GIG pub.
Also, way back in the mid-90s, you had to EITHER have a job at a place with internet access OR be a student at an institution that let you into the computer room whenever you wanted, so the pool of people rolling up 30 years later was very much what those sort of people would look like now. It was weirdly moving to see us all coming together again like this, and this feeling would continue throughout the evening!
Our tickets were in the GALLERY, which turned out to be up approx 17,000,000 stairs up, RIGHT at the top of the building. It was basically a massive corridor that went around the inside of the ROOF - there were no seats way up there so we leant against the RAILING, which was ACE as it also meant we not only had a view over everyone but could go for a) drinks b) the loo whenever we wanted!
The Loft were on first, and this ignited MORE FEELINGS - I've never really heard them before (we're playing with them in Leicester next month, so more revision will be needed!) but I know they are Important In The History Of Indie, in much the same way that The June Brides, who did the support in Dublin, were. It must be nice for Belle & Sebastian and similar bands to be big enough to play a massive venue like this and able to get YOUR heroes on to play with you, but I did wonder what it's like for the heroes themselves. It must be lovely to get such a big audience, and (to be VULGAR for a moment) get a big CA$H payout, but then you must be aware that the audience isn't there for YOU, and that this is probably the one and only time you'll get to play there. I mean, I am aware of certain bands who feature members of The Validators who've done something similar, and they seemed to have a LOVELY time, so maybe it's just me being daft, but I did wonder. If anyone wants to give me the chance to find out for myself, please let me know - Jonas Brothers, CALL ME!
Anyway, there was a very sophisticated (and highly punctual) interval, and then it was time for Belle & Sebastian who came on and did "Tigermilk" in full and it was WOW. As anyone who has been FORTUNATE enough to talk to me about this sort of thing will know, Belle & Sebastian loom LARGE in my Secret Origin Of ROCK and so it was a pretty big deal to see them play this album, not least when they did "Expectations" accompanied by (I think) some local ads from the time. One of these was ALSO used for the poster for the first gig of theirs I ever went to see, by accident, at QMU in Glasgow. That poster was stuck on my wall for MANY years, and seeing that image again took me RIGHT back!
(NB the image show above is NOT the one on my poster, I didn't quite get my camera out in time!)
The other Big Emotional Moment to do with actual songs was "We Rule The School", which was AMAZING, but elsewhere I got myself further wrought by looking at rest of the audience. It was incredible to think that we were all here for a band who released their first album as part of a training scheme at a local college, and then broke through via a) the brand new interweb and b) determinedly doing things their own way. These were BOTH huge inspirations for loads of us who saw them back then, and to be honest that's probably why I've ended up doing my stuff in the same way LO! unto this very day.
Thus the BIGGEST moment when I properly welled up was towards the end of the second half (when wonderfully they played other songs from those early days, and so I knew all the words for them too) and they did The Politest Stage Invasion Ever, including a one-off one-on policy of letting people onto the stage. From where we were you could see otherwise sensible grown-up people suddenly breaking out of their rows of seats and RUNNING to the front, called towards what was happening there very much as we had all been called to Belle & Sebastian AND EACH OTHER when we first heard those two early albums. I didn't want to run down there myself (not least because off all them steps!), but seeing my fellow fans celebrating the band felt HUGE.
What I'm saying is that it was dead good, and I was very pleased that Mark had suggested going, as I would not have wanted to miss it. The only niggling doubt I had afterwards was this business of it being 30 years ago, which means I would have been about four years old, surely, when we went to see them in Glasgow the first time. That can't be right, can it?
posted 9/4/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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