Saint Etienne

Esplanade Theatre Studio/Last Saturday

English indie dance trio Saint Etienne brought a touch of 1960s Swinging London to Singapore.

Lead vocalist Sarah Cracknell was in a go-go girl get-up with her white sequinned slip dress, knee-high boots and feather boa while retro-looking footage played on the video screens.

Not that the band’s music is that dated. After all, their first album, Fox Base Alpha, was released in 1991. It is just that they have always been comfortable absorbing a wide range of influences and some of their music could certainly sound at home in another era.

At the cosy, standing room-only Mosaic Club venue, they showcased their range by giving the audience the thumping synth-driven dance grooves of Burnt Out Car and Like A Motorway, and then mixing things up with the gently elegiac ballad Hobart Paving.

Cracknell said she loved that the space was dark, “which means you can dance and I won’t see you, but feel free”.

Their hit dance cover of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart and the anthemic He’s On The Phone got the crowd going as fans cheered and sang along during the choruses.

The one constant in Saint Etienne’s eclectic music is Cracknell’s clear, delicate vocals, though her voice seemed a little thinner and strained in parts on the night. Still, she was a game performer and it was fun to watch her as she doesn’t so much dance as vogue daintily.

In the background, bandmate Pete Wiggs and stand-in musician Gerard Johnson fiddled with the keyboards and twiddled the knobs. Bob Stanley was ill and missing in action and when the band performed You’re In A Bad Way, Cracknell dedicated it to him as “he’s in a bad way”.

In keeping with the retro vibe, the band steered clear of the more experimental Sound Of Water (2000) and the harder edged Finisterre (2002)

Plus, there was the constraint of a short set, only about an hour long, as they had a second show later that night.

Regrettably, the set list for the first show contained only one song, Sylvie, from their excellent dance-pop record Good Humour (1998).

The sole new song they played is from their forthcoming album and it was dedicated to the “disco dollies and disco beavers and disco people” out there. Cracknell mused that the title should be DJ rather than Making Out To The DJ, which was what was printed on the song list the musicians had, as the latter title sounded a “bit rude”.

Makes sense since Saint Etienne have always been a class act when it comes to dance music.

(ST)