Belle And Sebastian Delivered Their Groove To Chicago

By Carrie McGath in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 10, 2015 4:05PM

Belle and Sebastian, along with opening act, Honeyblood, delivered an engaging evening of music to a sold out crowd last Friday night at the Riviera Theater. Touring to promote their ninth studio album, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, this quintessential indie band satisfied the massive crowd that was positively chock full of longtime fans. Honeyblood, a duo that is also Glasgow-based, offered up a shadowy, punk-hued set that differed from the electronic dance music, peppered with the band's standard classics, that occupied a lot of Belle and Sebastian's performance that followed.

A diverse array of instrumentation is much a part of Belle and Sebastian's musical backbone and their show was an impressive display of this, while Stuart Murdoch bantered with the crowd as a much-loved indie king. The music videos and images that played behind them during the set further stimulated their new album's dance-centered electronica that spins tales of war, recovery and loss. Murdoch told the audience "Perfect Couples" was a cautionary tale and the video of hyperbolic couples in a crowded domestic space was a great backdrop for this song that cheekily comments on the demographic many of their fans may find themselves within. 

The entire evening was pretty light, with the band distancing themselves from their more somber numbers that make up such a large part of their overall canon. Instead, it was apparent the band wanted to continue to delve into the fun-loving and kinetic musical space they occupy with the new album. Their single, "The Party Line" was the third song of the set, officially setting up a tone that there was going to be focus on engaging the audience to move and mingle. Fans danced with other fans during the entire night, showing not only the band's ability continue to engage an audience and evolve after almost twenty years, but also they can still put the "hip" into indie hipster grooves.