Nothing Can Stop Us: Saint Etienne vocalist Sarah Cracknell (photo courtesy of simbenia)
I love the Ets. Have done since the mid-1990s. But, I was a bit of a late adopter. Bob, Pete and Sarah first broke onto the scene in 1990 (strictly speaking Sarah joined the boys in 1991) and they have been making sunny-skied, joyous, and melodic pop music ever since. Never stepping across the line to become ‘mainstream’ (and we, the fans, love them for that), their supporters are a loyal bunch and crave the group’s latest releases and far too few live performances.
We joined another 898 of them last night at the at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank, to see the group who are so engrained in London culture that they almost are London, for the closing gig of the Forever Heavenly weekend. Celebrating 18 years of the Heavenly Recordings record label, all the major artists who are currently, formerly, or forever Heavenly – including Edwyn Collins, Doves, the Magic Numbers, the Manic Street Preachers, and Beth Orton – played sets at the Southbank Centre, like one big happy musical family.
But it was left to Saint Etienne to bring the weekend mini-season to a close, and they played a show more than worthy of their headline status. Supported by label mates Dot Allison and The Little Ones, the trio and their gang of long-standing musicians blew the roof off the place, and bounced their way seamlessly through new songs and old hits, the audience loving every minute if the rapturous reception was anything to go by.
The stage was effectively (and traditionally for an Et gig) low-tech with only an old-school projector beaming static images onto a white screen, letting the music doing the talking. And while Bob and Pete stood in the shadows, the divine Miss Cracknell shimmied in the spotlight, waving her feather boa, wiggling her hips, chatting to the audience between songs, and defiantly encouraging them up to the front of the stage, against the security guards’ wishes.
Opening with This is Tomorrow from their acclaimed Royal Festival Hall film of the same name, fan favourites such as Nothing Can Stop Us, Who Do You Think You Are, and Like A Motorway were nestled in-between the soon to be released Burnt Out Car, and a ‘disco dolly’ version of Sylvie. The songs sounded fantastic, and the band had loyal fans young and old jumping in the aisles whooping with delight, the atmosphere electric, charged with much excitement.
Ending with their biggest hit to date, He’s On The Phone, and exiting twenty minutes early (the naughty tykes), the Ets bounded off stage into the night, leaving us wanting more. Unfortunately, the second encore never came, but for those all too brief 70 minutes last night, we had truly been in Etienne heaven.
Tags: Music, Saint Etienne