Forum, London
Saint Etienne played their last show of the year on the kind of London night that probably inspired some of their songs: fresh snowfall had already turned into sooty slush, and outside the Forum a group of under-dressed smokers looked grimly stoic. Inside, where the temperature had just about hit double figures, the trio took their time coming on stage, and who could blame them? If we're to believe the sleevenotes to their new festive album, A Glimpse of Stocking, they are wholehearted fans of Christmas, but the atmosphere approximated that melancholy hour late on 25 December when the festivities are indubitably over.
Somehow, though, between the three of them ? plus achingly high-spirited video footage of 1960s London, which was the starting point for their sound back in 1990 ? a bit of Yuletide magic was achieved. True to previous form, sequin-skirted Sarah Cracknell made a fairly tepid frontwoman, and synth-players Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were anonymous silhouettes in the shadows behind her. But the sweet kick of the music, with its sweeping strings and icing-sugar melodies, was enormously seductive.
The set was full of hits (they've had more than you'd think, from the deceptively lightweight Only Love Can Break Your Heart to the incongruously Latinate Like a Motorway) but it was the lesser-knowns that really registered. Girl VII proved a showpiece as Cracknell recited a list of the capital's least glamorous places ("Old Ford, Kennington, Dollis Hill") over a flute-filled tune that could have come from a 70s travelogue; new single DJ picked and probed at the bones of late-80s trance, complete with footage of overly refreshed ravers. Chris Rea's Driving Home for Christmas and their own I Was Born on Christmas Day ("Julian Assange was going to sing on this, but he couldn't make it," Cracknell joked feebly) made a satisfying ending to an evening of low-key pleasures.
Uma Thurman Alice Dodd Kate Walsh Autumn Reeser Camilla Belle
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