Belle and Sebastian & Vetiver

Even with competition from the fifth annual Coachella Music Festival in Southern California burning the skin of pale West Coast hipsters, the Warfield was packed to the max for Scottish indie darlings Belle and Sebastian’s visit to San Francisco.
The opening band, Vetiver (like the grass), was a homegrown Bay Area quartet of vocals, cello, violin and guitar. Their half-moon shaped assembly on stage seemed a cross between a scene out of Mr. Holland’s Opus and a local coffee shop’s Thursday open mic night. The sound was pleasing and even haunting, induced by the long and drawn-out minor key string arrangements and melancholy vocal lines. As they meandered a blend of folk and ambiguous Americana, the feeling I was left with was that Vetiver would have made a better impression in a more casual, intimate setting instead of the Warfield’s big stage and tall ceilings, where their performance appeared amateur.
Belle and Sebastian took the stage (all 12 of them — the seven credited members of the group, plus a string quintet) and prepped us for a night of pretty harmonies and crafted melodies with an instrumental opener. For a band in which the same person can switch from violin to keyboards to flute, or from bass to trumpet to French horn within the same set, musical diversity was an easy feat. Alternating between pop-y tunes from their latest, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and quieter gentler numbers from previous records, Belle and Sebastian played musical chairs with instruments and their placement on stage throughout the night.
Most of the set list drew from the new album; while this made for more of an upbeat show, I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, having seen them deliver a surprisingly rocking stage performance of their older, more fragile material at the Warfield three years earlier. Early on, the doesn’t-get-more-‘60s-pop-than-this “Step Into My Office, Baby” pumped up the audience only to be replaced by a contemplative, day-dreamy mood with “Piazza, New York Catcher,” a song accompanied only by guitar and laden with references to San Francisco, the Giants and the Tenderloin district. Though Belle and Sebastian repeatedly proclaimed their love for the city, they didn’t get the anticipated response from the audience; not surprising, as this type of crowd loves being engaged in being disengaged.
The nature of Belle’s thickly-textured recordings leaves little room for further expansion in a live setting, and their ability to impeccably reproduce their classy, catchy sound on stage without hi-tech studio manipulation really makes Belle and Sebastian stand out from amongst their peers. For instance, the string composition in the backdrop of “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” was as troubling and resolute live as on the recording, and the trumpet line on “My Wandering Days Are Over,” formed before our eyes, was as perfectly fitting. They have a talent for making you forget to criticize and start bobbing your head and singing along, even to the most nauseatingly over-the-top pop of “I’m A Cuckoo.”
It also helped that the group appeared down-to-earth and connected with the audience during silly interludes in their cute Scottish accents; getting kids to dance on stage, and even giving an impromptu birthday tribute for a guy in the audience named Nico with The Velvet Underground’s “I’ll be Your Mirror.”
After more animated-to-subdued passes through such greats as the dynamic “Scooby Driver” and the beautiful “Asleep On A Sunbeam,” they finished the main set with a crowd-pleasing “Stay Loose,” covering pretty much the whole Dear Catastrophe Waitress album. The excellent encore was one of my old favorites, “Seeing Other People.” Finally, "Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying" summed up a show of catchy tunes and winning smiles. Luckily, B&S do stand a chance.
– Ksenya Gusak
– Photos by Lania Cortez

Bookmark: