Belle & Sebastian, Fringe by the Sea review: 'euphoric'

Belle and Sebastian, Big Top, North Berwick ★★★★

Belle & Sebastian started out as a model of old-school pop productivity and that work ethic remains unchanged with a 30th anniversary tour for debut album Tigermilk and follow-up If You’re Feeling Sinister – playing each album in full on alternate nights. Underneath the big top at North Berwick’s vibrant Fringe By the Sea festival, the complete run-through of the latter album which opened this set felt fresh and exciting, doubtless invigorated by those three decades’ effect on their confidence and ability.

It’s a record of relative deep cuts and fan favourites, including the temperate but rousing opener The Stars of Track and Field, the galloping acoustic guitars of the title track (“maybe not the one you want to sing on a Sunday in a church choir”, noted singer and bandleader Stuart Murdoch) and the euphoric finale Judy and the Dream of Horses.

Me and the Major swelled with the sound of harmonica, while the elegiac Like Dylan in the Movies featured some beautiful trumpet playing. Murdoch noted the album contained various tributes to “our animal friends”, including the delicate, piano-led The Fox in the Snow and the “springtime song” Mayfly, while Get Me Away I'm Dying is one he always wants to leave out, because it’s “a bit bitchy” about their early record industry experiences.

READ MORE: Erland Cooper: Love of Life, Fringe by the Sea review: 'epic'

There were other recollections too, of picking Stevie Jackson up from Maryhill dole office to go and record the album over a week in August exactly 30 years ago, or even further back, Murdoch’s childhood visits to his auntie and uncle’s house in Gullane (“is it even posher than North Berwick?”), alongside apparently semi-serious attempts to call his opera-singer cousin to the stage.

Then, to end, a beautiful reminder of the Belles’ vast catalogue beyond their first two albums, including the gorgeous Sleep the Clock Around; Chickfactor, introduced by its singer Jackson in an impersonation of Bob Dylan while looking like Buddy Holly; Piazza, New York Catcher; a sublime The Boy with the Arab Strap, including a euphoric, coordinated stage invasion; and the Sarah Martin-sung I Didn’t See It Coming, a gentle comedown after all the excitement.

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