Saint Etienne - London Royal Festival Hall - 10/10/02
3/5
By: Toby L
Set-List: 'Heart Failed', 'Lose That Girl', 'Goodnight Jack', 'Burnt Out Car', 'The Way We Live Now', 'B92', 'Shower Scene', 'Amateur', 'New Thing', 'Stop & Think It Over', 'Soft Like Me', 'Action', 'Finisterre', 'Sylvie',
'Like A Motorway', ENCORE, 'Hobart Paving', 'Nothing Can Stop Us'.
The perils of a stage-invasion can typically mark chaos. But, for this lot, it's simply a fitting close to a triumphant performance, hundreds of fans huddling around Sarah Cracknell on-stage during the aptly-titled 'Nothing Can Stop Us'. Indeed, our blonde vixen looks to her sides before gawping in disbelief at the thousands seated and soon declares to those that have stolen her once ample performance-space, 'Now you're all here, I'm gonna go.' Standing-ovations all round, her earlier remark that this evening is within her top-ten favourite nights ever seems to transpire for more than several of those in attendance.
So here they are in 2002, then - St Etienne. A UK-pop group so consistently fast-moving and capable in their talents that they are still with us after all these years, the fact that tonight's grandiose Royal Festival Hall was sold out well in advance is testament to the four-piece's dynamic, populist produce. Their latest-LP 'Finisterre' may have quite lacked the open-armed reception once reserved for earlier times, yet if the band's latest tour is anything to go by, then they've just conclusively proved that they're as cherished and adored by the public as ever.
One certain benefit of the 'Etienne's firm place in music these days is their potential to implement the technologies on offer; taking to the stage behind moodily-lit, panelled booths housing their instruments, the boys in the band assemble and shuffle into place with their iconic front-woman trotting on soon after, high-heels and all. They launch into old-favourite 'Heart Failed', three huge screens blaring images of various depictions, but, despite all the imagery, something isn't right - there's a lack of animation, a true, restrained response. A fair legion of hands clap and a few wolf-whistles echo, but the atmosphere remains akin to the ambience acquired following a browse in the local public-library.
Still, it doesn't dampen the songs themselves, the tightly-performed renditions as sparkling and assured as on record, with 'Burnt Out Car' triggering the first ignited flashes of audience-appreciation. Though, surprisingly, some of the highlights themselves arrive within recent material, with the shimmering 'Shower Scene' and new single 'Soft Like Me', as performed with gifted female-MC, Wild Flower, conjuring a polite groove stirring enough to elevate people on to their feet and join a small congregation of movers near the front. And this is when the whole affair lightens up, the avant-garde screen-footage of street-signs and everyday sights no longer brooding a high-brow intellectualism that could potentially act as a barrier, and the glory of 'Sylvie' and 'Like A Motorway' rousing and rounding off a first set in near-perfection.
By now, resultantly, the temperature is soaring, and the excitement escalating. A short encore-break follows and it's two further favourites, the first of which, 'Hobart Paving', turns out to be one of the anthemic joys of the evening. Cracknell's voice, ironically, cracks at this point, its charismatic charm and class having been held up for so long already, but descending into laughter by the time she croons 'Don't forget to catch me.' We laugh and applaud, though on considering the actual line she tries to utter, despite what era it is, it'll be hard to imagine a time where we could ever neglect to commit such an action.
Artists in this article: Saint Etienne
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