British Sea Power play to a room of zombies on hallowe’en

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Hallowe’en night saw one of the most influential British bands to emerge in this millennium play to a room of people as lethargic and inactive as zombies. The gig was well attended, the Theatre was packed but there was an eerie feel in the air as the entire crowd stood there motionless, I don’t know about you but I tend to go to a music gig to dance…

The night started with a warm up from the Brighton pysch-pop band, Electric Soft Parade who have just returned to music from a two year break, and have jumped straight back into things by releasing “A Quick One EP” whilst touring the UK with British Sea Power. Their sound is somewhat of a mish-mash of Britpop they clearly were inspired by the bands emerging in the early 1990s like Oasis, The Stone Roses and Pulp, nonetheless they have crafted their own sound out of these influences.

As Electric Soft Parade finished off their last song there was a half hour break to set up the stage, I for one was hoping the crowd would hit the bar hard in this break to destroy their reservations about dancing, sadly they didn’t and were still boring as British Sea Power kicked off their set with Lights Out For Darker Skies. As things progressed the band played through the hits of their 5 albums, each song conveying different emotions, in both the lyrics and instrumentals from the feel good anthem Spirit of St. Louis to the melancholy North Hanging Rock, a song that deals with the theme of suicide. The band finished on their chart hit Waving Flags before making an encore to perform the magnificent semi-improvised jam session Rock in A which actually got the immobile masses moving, however the band didn’t smash up the stage at the end unfortunately, judging from how boring the crowd was they would have probably booed such actions.