OMG BELLE AND SEBASTIAN

A few days ago, p4k media announced that the one and only Belle and Sebastian would be embarking on a tour this summer/fall! This is super exciting news for me, like insanely exciting. Belle and Sebastian have been one of my favorite bands since I was just a little PopJew, hanging out with the punks on the stone wall outside of school. My friend Lynn slipped me a burnt CD of Tigermilk and that thing never left my discman. Remember those days, you guys? When you mostly found out about new music from mixes and stuff? Before you could just search HypeMachine? When you would fill out mailorder forms with pen and send it in the mail??? Ah, kind of miss those days.

Needless to say, I was super excited to hear that they would be playing in Brooklyn with another one of my favorite bands, Teenage Fanclub, this September! I've only seen B&S once before, but it was a super magical experience.

During my spring break from NYU in 2004 my boyfriend and I went to visit my aunt in the tiny little town of Maussane-Les-Alpilles in the south of France. We found out that Belle and Sebastian were going to be playing a show in Clermont-Ferrand, about 250 miles away. We didn't know anyone there, or have anywhere to stay (in fact, the only hostel we could find online was closed) but we were like "fuck it, spring break wooooooooo!" and just hopped on a train in Avignon and took the trip to central France.
An hour or so into the trip we met a nice guy on the train. He was originally from Africa and was currently a teacher at the university in Clermont-Ferrand. On the train he showed us his crazy notes for his classes, talked to us about America and France, and told us that a ton of his friends were going to the concert as well.
The night turned into a crazy party with a crazy group of international students from Italy, The Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden. We drank fancy beer, we danced to Belle and Sebastian songs, I bought the shirt from the cover of Dear Catastrophe Waitress:

That was really one of the most magical adventures of my entire life. Beautiful France, beautiful new friends, beautiful food, beautiful Belle and Sebastian jamz.
Belle and Sebastian honestly mean so much to me. Don't you think that "Seeing Other People" might be one of the greatest songs ever? I sure do...

See you in September... bring a nice blanket and we can hang out.