Stuart Murdoch admitted the last time Belle And Sebastian came down to the wilds of East Sussex was for two weeks of 2001 recording sessions in Battle - which produced only one song, the lesser-known B-side Love On The March.
Thankfully the 90 minutes they spent in Bexhill on Wednesday night were much more productive – playing a healthy selection from their early “Jeepster years” and previewing three new tracks from forthcoming album Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance.
As the album title suggests the new songs combined both politics in Allie, and strong rhythms, with an electropop beat pulsing through The Party Line and frontman Murdoch breaking out congas for guitarist Stevie Jackson’s hilarious Perfect Couples –with a lyric about the break-up of a smug young couple over organic produce and schools for the kids.
The stage seemed packed when the band first arrived, with a total of 12 band members, but it grew by the end when Murdoch invited audience members onstage for The Boy With The Arab Strap, to the point it was difficult to see the musicians for the fans pressed around them.
Early on Murdoch asked if everyone came from Bexhill. A chorus of no underlined that this was a crowd which had travelled to see the band – and they weren’t left disappointed.
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