Sea Power

On Saturday evening I am in Derby at The Venue for a gig.

The support band Pale Blue Eyes probably need to chill out a bit more. Perhaps wear their guitars a bit lower, the short guitar strap is always a bit of a red flag for me, and the drummer needs to take her coat off or something. They are undeniably pleasant and make a nice enough sound but I just find them a bit lacking that is apart from the outstanding use of the dry ice. Sorry. 

The band formerly known as British Sea Power play their first gigs in two years on a tour delayed from 2020 that I made sure I bought a ticket for to help support tonight’s venue through lockdown as well as contributing to the Save Our Venues campaign.

 

The band are never predictable and they certainly aren’t with tonight’s opening which is the long meandering (in a nice way) prog rock-ish instrumental Heavenly Waters that appeared as a b-side on the 2003 single for Carrion. From there on things are slightly more predictable with welcome airings for the likes of ‘The Lonely’ and ‘North Hanging Rock’ among others.

There is plenty from the new album, ‘Everything Was Forever’ due out in February 2022, in the form of the rocky Doppelgänger, the more sing-along Two Fingers, We Only Want To Make You Happy and Folly, their current single.

 

Along with the name change, they have dropped the ‘British’, apparently the bear has been retired, although the foliage strewn stage clearly hasn’t and nor has violinist Abi despite her absence tonight.

She is stuck sheep sitting on the remote croft on the Isle of Skye that she shares with Neil where they have had three new-borns this year. Probably the best excuse ever.

 

The encore features Waving Flags, their pro-immigration and open borders anthem, a song which would probably get the right wing press’ backs up (if they knew about it) as much as the name change did (they noticed that). It also explains why they did it, what with people getting the wrong idea about the politics of a band who are far from nationalistic.

 After that and after a two hour set, in a bizarre ending, but then aren’t they always, Yan and Martin are in the crowd. Yan is crowd surfing and Martin climbing on the beams (again) amid an impromptu (not on the set list) The Spirit of St. Louis. I wonder if they have to stress test the beams beforehand.