Belle and Sebastian and Courtney Barnett made the perfect pair at the Uptown last night

Belle and Sebastian with Courtney Barnett
Uptown Theater, Kansas City
Thursday, June 18

The pairing of Courtney Barnett and Belle and Sebastian is not an obvious one. Barnett is an artist relatively fresh to the United States, having released her debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, to nearly universal acclaim in March. Belle and Sebastian are 20-year veterans of sweet, sparse, thoughtful indie rock — a band with nine studio albums that, until recently, was far too often associated with mid-aughts notions of “twee.”

Last night’s Uptown show proved the merit of bringing these two diverse acts together at such different points in their careers. While their energies are certainly different, both are operating on a high level. 

With the sky outside still a bright pink, Courtney Barnett launched promptly into her set at 8 p.m. Proficient from what seems to be a nonstop jaunt this year from city to city, one late-night show to the next, Barnett made her set look effortless. As her fingers shimmied up and down the neck of her guitar, the reverb turned up high, she looked out into the audience, speak-singing as easily as if she were having a conversation rather than performing a story in front of a thousand people. As the set moved on, that speak-style echoed both Lou Reed and Courtney Love. 

Her style draws principally on garage and psych-rock, yet Barnett has managed to carve a unique space for herself. This is a credit to her atonal, raspy delivery, as well as to her ability to turn that into a storytelling style that highlights both her impressive wit and her lyrical ability to find greatness in the mundane. A highlight of the set, her hit single “Avant Gardener,” finds Barnett’s bored protagonist deciding to clean up her yard so it will appear less like a “meth lab.” During her efforts, she suffers an asthma attack, ultimately discovering a mutual admiration for the medic who attends to her: The paramedic thinks I’m clever ‘cos I play guitar / I think she’s clever ‘cos she stops people dying.

But the clever songwriting would be for nothing if Barnett weren’t also an impressive live musician. She’s not a flashy performer: During guitar solos, she’d take a step back into the dark, letting her hair fall over her face as her bandmates soaked in the stagelight. After repeated shouts of “I love you!” from the crowd, she peered out and commented wryly, “Well… I like you a lot.” 

Barnett closed her 40-minute set with “Pedestrian at Best,” the driving, beat-heavy anthem most responsible for bringing her to the buzzy forefront of the music scene this year. The song is fun, and has helped define Barnett’s style. It’s also a caution to those who are too ready to exalt her, personally but also professionally: Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you / Tell me I’m exceptional and I promise to exploit you.

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Following a short break, Belle and Sebastian filled the stage with more than a dozen performers and a bright, bouncy energy. As a cascade of vintage black-and-white images and words shone behind them, the band opened with “Nobody’s Empire,” from the recent Girls in Peacetime Like to Dance. It’s a musically expansive yet very personal song that touches on frontman Stuart Murdoch’s struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition that left him essentially disabled and quite isolated for several years while he was in his early 20s.

It was this experience that likely shaped the sensitive and highly observant person that Murdoch came to express in Belle and Sebastian’s songwriting. As he bounced in his seat at the piano and smiled at the audience, bright horns and backing vocals shimmering behind him, the formative experience of this illness became transformed. 

“We were actually here last week, on our way to Denver,” explained Murdoch between songs. “I felt a bit sneaky, out on the outskirts. We did our wash. It is the most glamorous thing.”

There was no sarcasm in Murdoch’s voice: An entire suitcase full of clean clothes while on tour is a luxury. He then acknowledged that this was the band’s first-ever appearance in Kansas City.

“Since this is our first time here, I feel like we’ll do a smorgasboard of things.” For audience members who have been listening since 1996’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, there was palpable excitement. They had been waiting.

The band did pick from its entire catalog, and “I’m a Cuckoo,” “Funny Little Frog” and “The Boy With the Arab Strap” in particular elicited huge responses from the crowd. Yet the band provided enough visual stimulation throughout to hook the audience into the newer material.

Stevie Jackson, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, joked about the essential nature of his role as an original member of the band before his song “Perfect Couples,” off the newest album. Behind the band, a giant screen showed a video made for the song, which featured a quaint midcentury home filled with similarly vintage-styled and hypnotically choreographed partygoers repeating their motions of showing up to a party in an extended loop, intertwining among one another blankly and joylessly over and over again. Jackson sang as the partygoers moved on the screen behind him: Perfect couples, I’ve seen them / making out on their yoga mats / why can’t my love be like that.

Belle and Sebastian’s 20 years of polish was apparent, and their move toward a bouncier disco sound on the latest album has helped shift the band from one with a crowd notoriously averse to dancing to one that borders on grooving. During “Dog on Wheels,” Murdoch moved down into the crowd and took a cue from the Flaming Lips, inviting audience members onstage to dance among the band. With the stage already crowded with cellos, keyboards, trumpets and other string instruments, the addition of a couple dozen eager Kansas Citians felt like a party.

The band’s encore gave the crowd the classics it had long waited for. “Me and the Major,” with Stevie Jackson’s incredible, rapid-fire harmonica playing, felt climactic and explosive, and the crowd around me sang along to every word. Finally, “The Blues Are Still Blue” displayed the band at its finest: making melancholy feel light, even if just for a night. 

Courtney Barnett setlist:
Elevator Operator
Lance Jr
An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York)
Small Poppies
Dead Fox
Depreston
Avant Gardener
History Eraser
Pedestrian at Best 

Belle and Sebastian setlist: 
Nobody’s Empire
I’m a Cuckoo
The Party Line
The State I Am In
Expectations
Funny Little Frog
Perfect Couples
Piazza, New York Catcher
(I Believe In) Travellin’ Light
The Power of Three
Allie
Women’s Realm
Dog on Wheels
The Boy with the Arab Strap
I Didn’t See It Coming
Judy and the Dream of Horses
—
Me and the Major
The Blues Are Still Blue