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Belle & Sebastian 2019 Tour
B&S Setlist
Tour Dates
08/08 – 08/12/2019 The Boaty Weekender 2019
10/31 – 11/03/2019 Pitchfork Music Festival Paris 2019 11/08 – 11/09/2019 Primavera Weekender 2019 Read More
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Scottish band Belle & Sebastian graced the Weesner Family Amphitheater at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley on Tuesday, July 23rd.
Prior to live music, DJ Jake Rudh (from Transmission) played a mix of 60s/70s-ish pop songs for fans. Some songs on the playlist includes Lulu’s “To Sir With Love”, Twinkle’s “Golden Lights” (mixed with The Smiths?) and Van McCoy & the Soul City Symphony’s “The Hustle”.
Montreal-based trio Men I Trust (Emma Proulx, Jessy Caron, and Dragos Chiriac) opened up the show with “Tailwhip”. Singer Emma Proulx mentioned that they’ve opened up for Belle & Sebastian before, and was more than happy to play with them again at the Minnesota Zoo.
Stevie Jackson (from B&S) would later say that it was Men I Trust’s last show with the group and they were sad to see them go…. But don’t feel so bad for them, as they’re landing in South Korea in a few days to play the Holiday Land Festival.
The trio had an easy electronic-pop/indiepop sound to them and expect to hear more from them once their upcoming Oncle Jazz album (with 24 tracks!) comes out in September 2019. Maybe they’ll do a promotional tour around that time (which is actually perfect for SXSW).
Glasgow’s Belle & Sebastian came on the stage shortly. The band currently features singer/guitarist/keys Stuart Murdoch, singer/guitarist Stevie Jackson, singer/violin/flutist Sarah Martin, keys Chris Geddes, drummer Richard Colburn, bassist/guitarist Bobby Kildea, and additional guitarist/bassist Dave McGowan. The group is so large, that they’ve actually lost their drummer (left him at a Walmart) on their way to Palace Theatre in St Paul in August 2017.
As you know, I’ve seen B&S at every appearance in the Twin Cities, going back to Oct 2003, and the band just gets better and better. With the Minnesota Zoo’s on their mind, they started their set with “Dog on Wheels” (their very first single). The animal-thing is actually pretty cool, even though we previously seen them at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney in 2015.
More animal-banters as Stuart mentioned how the lions came out and Sarah jokingly re-naming “Stay Loose” as “Stay Moose” (there were images of a moose on their backdrop as they played that song)… and Stuart adding “I couldn’t care what’s on FOX news”. Songs from the animal-named Tigermilk, “She’s Losing It”. It was a good choice, but on the setlist, the alternate options were “Belle & Sebastian” and “Seeing Other People” (the later would have been my song choice).
Every song was greeted with happy cheers from the audience. This is possibly based on fan’s request, who heavily influenced the setlist, at least that’s the impression I got from hearing Stuart describing about directly talking to their fans. Of course, that didn’t stop some people from shouting out their favorites (one being “Funny Little Frog”, which they did eventually honor on the encore).
After “Family Tree” a fan asked for “It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career” and although Stevie started to hum and attempted to play, they had to stop and say, “Maybe next time”. They just weren’t prepared for it.
It’s standard now, but, of course, when “The Boy With the Arab Strap” was played, the band invited their dedicated fans to come on stage and dance with them… making for a very satisfying show stopper. Fans were invited to stay on for the following song “I Didn't See It Coming”.
The clear highlight for everyone at the Minnesota Zoo show has got to be their amazing impromptu cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Apparently, Stuart spotted someone in the audience with the Australian band’s T-Shirt and had Bobby Kildea just play a bit of the song… before you know it, the entire band is playing in sync. This song isn’t normally played, but hearing and watching them, it’s clear they’ve practiced before. I found out later that the band did play at their Sheffield show a few weeks ago, and the Minnesota Zoo was only their second time playing the song ever. It was so good, I hope they include this song on their set going forward.
That’s not all. For the faithful who stayed for the encore, we were rewarded with the rarely heard live rendition of “This Is Just a Modern Rock Song”. The studio track is over seven minutes long (longer than “Your Cover’s Blown”), so it made sense that the band won’t really play the song in concert. To bring us the song, Stuart mentioned that he’ll shorten the song… and at first you think they’ll just play a minute or two, but they actually went on pretty long. The abridged version leaves out the personal ending (“Stevie's full of good intentions/Richards into rock 'n' roll/Stuart's staying in and he thinks it's a sin that he has to leave the house at all”), but closing as it should be with “I count "three, four" and then we start to slow, because a song has got to stop somewhere”.
Although the band’s latest release is the compilation How to Solve Our Human Problems, they actually didn’t play too many songs from this new record. Instead, this current tour seems to something of a rarity and greatest hits collection live… and it’s actually my favorite show from them (having seen them six times now). They just keep getting better.
Prior to live music, DJ Jake Rudh (from Transmission) played a mix of 60s/70s-ish pop songs for fans. Some songs on the playlist includes Lulu’s “To Sir With Love”, Twinkle’s “Golden Lights” (mixed with The Smiths?) and Van McCoy & the Soul City Symphony’s “The Hustle”.
Montreal-based trio Men I Trust (Emma Proulx, Jessy Caron, and Dragos Chiriac) opened up the show with “Tailwhip”. Singer Emma Proulx mentioned that they’ve opened up for Belle & Sebastian before, and was more than happy to play with them again at the Minnesota Zoo.
Stevie Jackson (from B&S) would later say that it was Men I Trust’s last show with the group and they were sad to see them go…. But don’t feel so bad for them, as they’re landing in South Korea in a few days to play the Holiday Land Festival.
The trio had an easy electronic-pop/indiepop sound to them and expect to hear more from them once their upcoming Oncle Jazz album (with 24 tracks!) comes out in September 2019. Maybe they’ll do a promotional tour around that time (which is actually perfect for SXSW).
Glasgow’s Belle & Sebastian came on the stage shortly. The band currently features singer/guitarist/keys Stuart Murdoch, singer/guitarist Stevie Jackson, singer/violin/flutist Sarah Martin, keys Chris Geddes, drummer Richard Colburn, bassist/guitarist Bobby Kildea, and additional guitarist/bassist Dave McGowan. The group is so large, that they’ve actually lost their drummer (left him at a Walmart) on their way to Palace Theatre in St Paul in August 2017.
As you know, I’ve seen B&S at every appearance in the Twin Cities, going back to Oct 2003, and the band just gets better and better. With the Minnesota Zoo’s on their mind, they started their set with “Dog on Wheels” (their very first single). The animal-thing is actually pretty cool, even though we previously seen them at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney in 2015.
More animal-banters as Stuart mentioned how the lions came out and Sarah jokingly re-naming “Stay Loose” as “Stay Moose” (there were images of a moose on their backdrop as they played that song)… and Stuart adding “I couldn’t care what’s on FOX news”. Songs from the animal-named Tigermilk, “She’s Losing It”. It was a good choice, but on the setlist, the alternate options were “Belle & Sebastian” and “Seeing Other People” (the later would have been my song choice).
Every song was greeted with happy cheers from the audience. This is possibly based on fan’s request, who heavily influenced the setlist, at least that’s the impression I got from hearing Stuart describing about directly talking to their fans. Of course, that didn’t stop some people from shouting out their favorites (one being “Funny Little Frog”, which they did eventually honor on the encore).
After “Family Tree” a fan asked for “It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career” and although Stevie started to hum and attempted to play, they had to stop and say, “Maybe next time”. They just weren’t prepared for it.
It’s standard now, but, of course, when “The Boy With the Arab Strap” was played, the band invited their dedicated fans to come on stage and dance with them… making for a very satisfying show stopper. Fans were invited to stay on for the following song “I Didn't See It Coming”.
The clear highlight for everyone at the Minnesota Zoo show has got to be their amazing impromptu cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Apparently, Stuart spotted someone in the audience with the Australian band’s T-Shirt and had Bobby Kildea just play a bit of the song… before you know it, the entire band is playing in sync. This song isn’t normally played, but hearing and watching them, it’s clear they’ve practiced before. I found out later that the band did play at their Sheffield show a few weeks ago, and the Minnesota Zoo was only their second time playing the song ever. It was so good, I hope they include this song on their set going forward.
That’s not all. For the faithful who stayed for the encore, we were rewarded with the rarely heard live rendition of “This Is Just a Modern Rock Song”. The studio track is over seven minutes long (longer than “Your Cover’s Blown”), so it made sense that the band won’t really play the song in concert. To bring us the song, Stuart mentioned that he’ll shorten the song… and at first you think they’ll just play a minute or two, but they actually went on pretty long. The abridged version leaves out the personal ending (“Stevie's full of good intentions/Richards into rock 'n' roll/Stuart's staying in and he thinks it's a sin that he has to leave the house at all”), but closing as it should be with “I count "three, four" and then we start to slow, because a song has got to stop somewhere”.
Although the band’s latest release is the compilation How to Solve Our Human Problems, they actually didn’t play too many songs from this new record. Instead, this current tour seems to something of a rarity and greatest hits collection live… and it’s actually my favorite show from them (having seen them six times now). They just keep getting better.
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Men I Trust |
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Men I Trust |
Belle & Sebastian Setlist |
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Belle & Sebastian at Weesner Family Amphitheater, Apple Valley (23 July 2019) |
This was like a dream show for me. I ended up getting a front row ticket just days before the show, got to go up on stage for Arab Strap, and got Stuart to sign "If You're Feeling Sinister" (and trapped him in a polite fan mob - sorry Stuart!)
The best part was that I wrote Stuart with my request of Modern Rock Song. I'm touched that they actually played it - it's so rarely played but it's been part of my dream setlist. I tried to get a video but had a camera malfunction unfortunately.
Thank you for the write-up and sharing your photos.
Posted by: Brian Douglas | 07/28/2019 at 09:50 PM
Thank you - love hearing Modern Rock song live. Never thought I'd hear it in person. In case you were interested, I posted their AC/DC cover here https://twitter.com/weheartmusic/status/1153911421585022978
Posted by: W♥M | 07/28/2019 at 10:37 PM