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Setlist
Tour Dates
09/01 Netherlands, Utrecht, Vrendenburg
09/02 Netherlands, Into The Great Wide Open 10/04 Tokyo, Zepp University 10/05 Osaka, Big Cat 10/07 Asagiri, Asagiri Jam, Rainbow Stage Read More
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Beloved Scottish band Belle & Sebastian headlined the Palace Theatre in St Paul last week (15 August 2017)... but the show almost didn’t happen!
The rather large band (Stuart Murdoch on vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboard, and “keytar”, Stevie Jackson on electric guitar, Chris Geddes on keyboards, Richard Colburn on drums, Sarah Martin on keys, guitars, violin, flute and vocals, Bobby Kildea on guitar and bass, Dave McGowan on bass, guitar, and keyboards, plus extra players and staffs) accidentally left their drummer Richard Colburn, in North Dakota, on their way to St Paul. Colburn, armed with only a credit card (no phone), his pajamas, and with help from fans, was able to get on a plane to make it to St Paul just in time to play!
Transmission’s DJ Jake Rudh warmed up Palace Theatre, playing appropriate songs to the indiepop audience (The Cardigans, The Smiths, etc). The DJ hour long set led nicely to Julien Baker’s appearance on stage.
Baker started her music career in 2010 in the band The Star Killers (renamed themselves Forrister), when she was 15 years old, but decided to go solo in 2015.
Unfortunately, the shy singer and guitarist’s songs were often drowned out by the chatty crowd (at least where we were at), who were clearly weren’t there to give the opener a chance. It didn’t help that Baker was seemingly troubled by something with her guitar... and didn’t really get her groove in until ‘Funeral Pyre’... which was a song left off her debut record Sprained Ankle.
It was just the wrong venue for Julien Baker, her quiet, sensitive, reflective songs would go over well over at the Cedar Cultural Center, or a smaller, intimate set at the 7th Street Entry... not a big room like the Palace Theatre.
Baker recently released her new single ‘Appointments’, taken from her forthcoming sophomore album Turn Out The Lights.
I may have criticized Belle & Sebastian’s last appearance in Minneapolis at Rock the Garden in June 2015. You see, we haven’t seen the band since 2006, and instead of playing long, lost songs, the band stuck to playing songs from their then-new album Girls in Peacetime Wants to Dance. Which would normally be fine, since that was the current tour they were on... but because they’ve been absent in the area for so long, it would’ve been nice to hear some more older songs in that nine-year gap. Still, having the band back in town, it was still worth it, especially for the start of their set closing song ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’.
This time around, since they have a longer set (slightly over an hour and fifteen minutes) and no new album to promote, they gave us some great old songs and some “deep cuts”, particularly the wonderful b-side ‘Photo Jenny’ (only played twice on this 2017 tour). As you can see from the setlist, they had the option of also playing ‘Mayfly’, but instead of offering the vote to the audience, the band all decided they were just going to play ‘Photo Jenny’. “This song is really old. In fact, it has the year ‘1995’ in it,” said Stuart Murdoch.
Of course, the band made a lot of missing drummer jokes at Richard Colburn’s expense, but it was all in good fun. For ‘A Summer Wasting’, Murdoch changed the first few lines to ‘A Drummer Wasting’. Later in the show, the band said they’ve implemented a new system for missing drummers with a slide that read, “Someone Is Off The Bus”. Murdoch jokingly laughed, “We have a system now!” You know Colburn will never, ever live down this embarrassing story.
The new song ‘We Were Beautiful’ (written in 2016) was played early in the set. Another new song ‘Sweet Dew Lee’ made it on their setlist, but ultimately was not played. These tracks would likely appear in a forthcoming ninth album, probably on Matador Records.
‘We Rule the School’ was dedicated to Andy Thomson, a Minnesotan who worked with the band (string arrangements) for Girls in Peacetime Wants to Dance. After the song, Murdoch commented about the kindness of people, “This country, you know it’s a great country... because of people like you. It’s not people on television or Fox News. The people tonight, I know that you know that it’s a tricky time. But it’s a blip, and we will win. Peace will win. Gentleness will win. Compassion will win!”
A couple of duets were included on the setlist. The first ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’ had live vocals from Sarah Martin (replacing the original recorded Norah Jones vocals), while ‘Play For Today’ had pre-recorded Dee Dee Penny on vocals via video.
The show’s highlight is ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’, which typically, the band will invite a handful of fans in the front to come on stage to dance. We’ve seen it before, but it’s always fun to see.
The stage lights all turned blue for, ‘The Blues Are Still Blue’, followed by the slow intro to ‘The State I Am In’. Despite a slow start, the song does pick up and had the audience singing along to their first song.
After a brief break, the band came back. Murdoch has a Shepard Fairey’s “Muslim, We The People” t-shirt on. They started their encore with the recent hit ‘Party Line’. Murdoch actually sang most of the song in the audience, which probably wasn’t a good idea for fans in the back of balcony!
They took requests from the audience and settled on ‘Judy and the Dream of Horses’ as the final song. That song was the optional song for ‘The State I Am In’, but I’m glad that both songs were played.
The rather large band (Stuart Murdoch on vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboard, and “keytar”, Stevie Jackson on electric guitar, Chris Geddes on keyboards, Richard Colburn on drums, Sarah Martin on keys, guitars, violin, flute and vocals, Bobby Kildea on guitar and bass, Dave McGowan on bass, guitar, and keyboards, plus extra players and staffs) accidentally left their drummer Richard Colburn, in North Dakota, on their way to St Paul. Colburn, armed with only a credit card (no phone), his pajamas, and with help from fans, was able to get on a plane to make it to St Paul just in time to play!
Transmission’s DJ Jake Rudh warmed up Palace Theatre, playing appropriate songs to the indiepop audience (The Cardigans, The Smiths, etc). The DJ hour long set led nicely to Julien Baker’s appearance on stage.
Baker started her music career in 2010 in the band The Star Killers (renamed themselves Forrister), when she was 15 years old, but decided to go solo in 2015.
Unfortunately, the shy singer and guitarist’s songs were often drowned out by the chatty crowd (at least where we were at), who were clearly weren’t there to give the opener a chance. It didn’t help that Baker was seemingly troubled by something with her guitar... and didn’t really get her groove in until ‘Funeral Pyre’... which was a song left off her debut record Sprained Ankle.
It was just the wrong venue for Julien Baker, her quiet, sensitive, reflective songs would go over well over at the Cedar Cultural Center, or a smaller, intimate set at the 7th Street Entry... not a big room like the Palace Theatre.
Baker recently released her new single ‘Appointments’, taken from her forthcoming sophomore album Turn Out The Lights.
I may have criticized Belle & Sebastian’s last appearance in Minneapolis at Rock the Garden in June 2015. You see, we haven’t seen the band since 2006, and instead of playing long, lost songs, the band stuck to playing songs from their then-new album Girls in Peacetime Wants to Dance. Which would normally be fine, since that was the current tour they were on... but because they’ve been absent in the area for so long, it would’ve been nice to hear some more older songs in that nine-year gap. Still, having the band back in town, it was still worth it, especially for the start of their set closing song ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’.
This time around, since they have a longer set (slightly over an hour and fifteen minutes) and no new album to promote, they gave us some great old songs and some “deep cuts”, particularly the wonderful b-side ‘Photo Jenny’ (only played twice on this 2017 tour). As you can see from the setlist, they had the option of also playing ‘Mayfly’, but instead of offering the vote to the audience, the band all decided they were just going to play ‘Photo Jenny’. “This song is really old. In fact, it has the year ‘1995’ in it,” said Stuart Murdoch.
Of course, the band made a lot of missing drummer jokes at Richard Colburn’s expense, but it was all in good fun. For ‘A Summer Wasting’, Murdoch changed the first few lines to ‘A Drummer Wasting’. Later in the show, the band said they’ve implemented a new system for missing drummers with a slide that read, “Someone Is Off The Bus”. Murdoch jokingly laughed, “We have a system now!” You know Colburn will never, ever live down this embarrassing story.
The new song ‘We Were Beautiful’ (written in 2016) was played early in the set. Another new song ‘Sweet Dew Lee’ made it on their setlist, but ultimately was not played. These tracks would likely appear in a forthcoming ninth album, probably on Matador Records.
‘We Rule the School’ was dedicated to Andy Thomson, a Minnesotan who worked with the band (string arrangements) for Girls in Peacetime Wants to Dance. After the song, Murdoch commented about the kindness of people, “This country, you know it’s a great country... because of people like you. It’s not people on television or Fox News. The people tonight, I know that you know that it’s a tricky time. But it’s a blip, and we will win. Peace will win. Gentleness will win. Compassion will win!”
A couple of duets were included on the setlist. The first ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’ had live vocals from Sarah Martin (replacing the original recorded Norah Jones vocals), while ‘Play For Today’ had pre-recorded Dee Dee Penny on vocals via video.
The show’s highlight is ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’, which typically, the band will invite a handful of fans in the front to come on stage to dance. We’ve seen it before, but it’s always fun to see.
The stage lights all turned blue for, ‘The Blues Are Still Blue’, followed by the slow intro to ‘The State I Am In’. Despite a slow start, the song does pick up and had the audience singing along to their first song.
After a brief break, the band came back. Murdoch has a Shepard Fairey’s “Muslim, We The People” t-shirt on. They started their encore with the recent hit ‘Party Line’. Murdoch actually sang most of the song in the audience, which probably wasn’t a good idea for fans in the back of balcony!
They took requests from the audience and settled on ‘Judy and the Dream of Horses’ as the final song. That song was the optional song for ‘The State I Am In’, but I’m glad that both songs were played.
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Belle & Sebastian - The Blues are Still Blue |
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Julien Baker |
Someone Is Off The Bus |
Setlist |
B&S |
Stuart Murdoch |
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Belle & Sebastian at Palace Theatre, St Paul (15 August 2017) |
