Few indie pop bands have inspired the lasting excitement and committed fandom as Belle and Sebastian. Music defined in part by its shy, retiring character and willful obscurity doesn't usually lend itself to legions of screaming fans at sold-out theater shows, with many indie legends never moving much further than tiny club shows if they made it to the stage at all. Belle and Sebastian somehow simultaneously achieve both the insular fragility of twee indie pop and the star power required to sustain a ravenous fan base for multiple decades, presenting both in double live album What to Look for in Summer. Recorded at dates across the band's 2019 tour (including several shows on a cruise ship), this massive 23-track document is a thoughtfully considered collection of both indispensable fan favorites and less-celebrated deeper cuts. Many of the group's best-loved songs came from their earliest EPs and albums in the mid- to late '90s, and lots of those tracks are represented here. A particularly lovely rendition of "Fox in the Snow" from 1996's essential If You're Feeling Sinister is a standout of the set list, and the audience's eruptions of cheering at the beginning notes of "Seeing Other People" and "Dog on Wheels" capture the mix of joy, excitement, and nostalgia that must have filled the room during these concerts. It wouldn't seem right if the band didn't play one of their most iconic songs, the title track from their 1998 album The Boy with the Arab Strap, and the performance here is charmingly loose, adding a drunken giddiness to the carefree energy of the song by speeding up the tempo a touch and playing around with the vocal phrasing.
As nice as it is to hear fun versions of familiar songs, What to Look for in Summer peppers its track listing with unexpected selections from across the band's extensive discography. Multiple songs from 2000's Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant show up, including the inverted sunshine pop of "Nice Day for a Sulk." The stellar catchiness of "I Didn't See It Coming" from 2010's Write About Love is a reminder how strong Belle and Sebastian's songwriting and arrangement remained long after the initial fanfare of their arrival died down. There's an irony in a double live album coming from a band who began as a recording project with no plans on ever playing in front of people. 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.