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Good Friday, 14th April 2017
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Gig Review

British Sea Power
Leadmill, Sheffield

Article written by Matt H - Apr 13, 2014

British Sea Power - must have been a slow one. Hammy's singing. And I was upright.

You was the generation who got degrees and British Sea Power give you what you deserve.

It has been noted here before that British Sea Power are a band that are often judged to fall between stools. Neither brainy nor rock enough. But there’s loads of people here tonight who get exactly where they’re coming from. They live between the stools (er…note to self –better metaphors required). People whose parents were firmly rooted in the 20th century working class (when that still definitely meant something). Education and/or white collar work has left them adrift. With no innate understanding of, or joy to be taken from, much of the middle-class life they’ve been pitched into. But no way of going back either. Saturday night on West Street doesn’t welcome them. Nigel Blackwell is their Poet Laureate. And British Sea Power are their standard bearers. Literate. Self-aware. Not too proud. They do have something else to do. But BSP is where they can dance and drink (if not actually screw).

Yep. There’s not actually much gig reviewing going on here is there? Well sod it. BSP are too much fun to be taking notes (look, there’s a shit picture in the top left, I was there). Certainly they were loads of fun tonight. (Warm Digits are also worth a shout out by the way.) It was an evening to be enjoyed, not analysed. They did a lot of their bouncier stuff, not least from Do You Like Rock Music? Rarely a favourite album, but one that worked fine here. The more stately stuff was wonderful too. And they unleashed the bears into the crowd. The mixture of a joy and a desperate rush for a photo opportunity was unconfined. I’ve not seen anything like it since Peppa Pig switched on the Moor Xmas lights. (And far more of you who were there will know exactly what I’m referring to than will care to admit it.) Even the security, who had maintained impeccably disapproving mein in the face of repeated crowd-surfing, were forced to crack a grin at the sight of a 10 foot polar bear sailing towards them.

So BSP triumphed. As they ought to. They were playing to their people. They give us something to cling to as we drift down the river. And we love them for it.

Links:
http://www.britishseapower.co.uk/