Belly at The Forum

Belly,
The Forum, 21 July 2016

I have seen Belly before, back in the 1990s, during the King tour. I must admit I can't remember much about it other than it was at Shepherd's Bush Empire before they put the barriers in and you could actually sit on the edge of the stage if you wanted to. I vaguely recall Tanya Donelly being smiley and sweet and Gail Greenwood being the most talkative of them all and looking like she belonged more in L7 than a twangy, slightly twee, indie band.

Not long after the band broke up and Tanya went solo and apparently was planning on retiring from music altogether with her Swan Song series of EPs (she has a "real world" job as a childbirth assistant these days). I don't know if her excellent guest spot on the Throwing Muses tour last year reignited something in her but here she is reunited with her band Belly, out of love it seems and not money (she seemed genuinely surprised in interviews and Twitter that many of the shows sold out). It's bizarre to learn too, that the reason the band split up was because their second album King didn't sell very well. It the time it seemed to be everywhere, the videos were all over MTV (particularly Super-Connected) and the band was even on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. When they play songs from King tonight it instantly takes me back to that time and reminds me just how much I listened to and loved that album. Maybe Belly didn't take over the world but they certainly took over my world, albeit briefly.

Tonight, there's no support and the show starts at just after 8.30pm, which is actually quite refreshing for once. They also play for two hours (despite only having two albums) with a ten minute break in between (which is kind of weird - they're not that old!). Much of the crowd looks like they were fans first time around, something bassist Gail clocks right away and keeps mentioning ("we're from the 90s!" etc, etc), Tanya is far sweeter: when the crowd goes mad at her entrance she gasps "you just took all my nerves away!". She looks amazing - with short blonde hair and a loose black sleeveless top - so much so it's hard to believe 20 years have passed since she last stepped out with Belly. Gail looks great too, just an older version of that L7-grunge gal she is, still with the long, head-banging hair. The Gorman brothers do look older, but still cool of course, in fact guitarist Tom Gorman reminded me of a 70s James Taylor with his lanky frame and neat mustache and beard. 

When they launch into King track Puberty the sound is awful, but it's plainly not the band's fault, it's probably whoever is mixing the sound but the Forum has always been hugely hit and miss with its sound. It actually takes a couple of songs for things to start sounding right, but thankfully when they reach Star track White Belly things have evened out a little and I can actually hear Tanya and the individual instruments enough to start enjoying this trip down memory lane.

The first half feels quite heavy on King songs and although I've always preferred Star it's funny how many tingles I got hearing the perfect pop of tracks like Seal My Fate, The Bees, Red and Judas My Heart. Even though I haven't listened to them in years they still sound surprisingly fresh and I remember all the words. They even throw in a new song, tentatively titled Punish, although Tanya asks the audience if they have any suggestions to let her know. The song sounds good, like it picks up where King left off and judging by it the new album they are working on sounds pretty promising.

Surprisingly Gepetto comes early in the set and of course gets the crowd actually jumping up and down, still full of jangly magical goodness, while Full Moon, Empty Heart ends the first set: the crowd singing along to the slow acoustic intro and then bouncing up and down when the drums and guitars kick in, with Tanya's delightful bird-like falsetto rising above the noise.

The second half sees Gail return to the stage in what looks like a saucy maid fancy dress costume for some reason. Thankfully it doesn't distract too much from the acoustic loveliness of Untogether, which immediately took me back to the other-worldly quality of Star, full of dark little tales to escape into. There are a lot more songs from Star during this set but if I had my way they would have played the whole album through. We did get the fuzzy thrill of Dusted though and swirling magic of Feed The Tree, as well as the darkly haunting menace of Low Red Moon, which sounded so perfect it may well have been the highlight of the night.

There was another great sounding new track called Comet and surprisingly two B-sides, Spaceman and Thief, both from the King. They saved the MTV favourite Super-Connected for near the very end, with it's loud rock riff providing a beautiful send-off. After such a long show there's just one bitter-sweet encore, Stay, sounding like a lovely lullaby to send us off into the night.

This was a far from perfect show, the band sounded particularly rusty at times and even went out of tune on some songs, and, as I said earlier, the sound was absolutely terrible at the start, but it certainly proved that Belly's short back-catalogue is filled with treasures and there's something completely captivating about Tanya Donelly still. The music world is definitely a more magical place with Belly in it. I'm glad they're back but they probably need to get in a little more practice before they return again.