What to Look for in Summer [Live]

What To Look For In Summer is a terrific career spanning selection of some of their most loved songs the performances of which give lie to the common wisdom about a bunch of fey, romantically challenged, wallflowers. If anoraks just wanna have fun we could do far worse than spending 100 minutes with Stuart Murdoch and company.

The songs sound great, but the easy on-stage banter and joyful communion with the audience sounds even better. Shut-ins of the world, unite and take over.

Murdoch and company have done a great job in creating a live album that includes a little bit of something for everyone. What to Look for in Summer does a fairly good job of capturing the magnetic energy of a Belle and Sebastian show and since we have been starved for live music this year, this is a welcome release to help tide us over.

It’s probably the pandemic’s impact on the live music scene that makes an album like this feel more welcome than it might have last year. It’s still not comparable to the real thing, but it does remind us of what we’re missing.

‘What To Look For In Summer’ is an enchanting compendium of the bands live work and is an ideal accompaniment to spirit you away to those carefree summer days of enjoying live music.

The band's pleasure in playing and connecting with fans shines throughout. [Feb 2021, p.25]

Having such an extensive body of work to choose from, and Belle and Sebastian being one of those bands that regularly change their setlists every night, there are bound to be fan favorites missing but what has been documented works even if not quite making up for the real thing. Which, of course, is the downside of not just this but any live album ever recorded

What to Look for in Summer is simply more evidence to the fact that Belle and Sebastian's songs are so well made and evocative of such complex beauty, they were never going to stay contained in the lonely bedrooms and limited-edition releases they started from.