Review of British Sea Power at The Academy, Dublin – February 17th 2011
Review by James Hendicott
Photos by Kieran Frost
There’s always been a special vibe to British Sea Power. A kind of alternative love in that blends all of Brighton’s notorious quirks and fuses them in a Joy Division influenced whirl of edgy, unpredictable indie rock. Their live show is notorious: flamboyant and unpredictable, we’ve been lead to expect exorbitant stage antics, from leaping off sound towers to coating the entire place in assorted foliage. Tonight, we’re treated to no such thing.
On paper, everything looks great: singles like opener ‘Remember Me’ and more recent efforts ‘Living Is So Easy’ and the insanely catchy ‘Waving Flags’ are all present and correct, alongside a host of the band’s more obscure material, but something about today’s show is not quite right. There’s a small group of die-hard fans down the front bouncing away frantically, but the overall sense is of a disconnection to the assembled throng, like an invisible barrier preventing the performance from taking on a life of its own.
It’s a sense that grows throughout the show. After a lively start, the most energy the band can muster is a brief handclap from Martin during ‘Waving Flags’ and an occasional strut around the stage. Those are not words we thought we’d ever write about British Sea Power. If anything, they’re jagged chords and nasal vocals are best suited to a live setting, and capable of producing some incredibly memorable sets. Tonight, though, they’re very much a ‘stand and deliver’ band: while the tunes are solid and well produced, they perform them with all the passion of a girl band cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. It’s so disinterested at times, in fact, that violinist Abi spends large parts of the show not even looking at the audience, and only singer Yan seems to have any affection for the crowd at all.
For most bands, that might even be okay, but one of the reasons fans go and see British Sea Power is the sheer physical nature of their live show, and in this case just offering a selection of hits nowhere near does the job. We can tell you that BSP are heavy on the guitars, throw in their usual vocally clever twists and play for an impressive hour and three-quarters, but none of that seems to matter when they seem like a band on the brink of implosion. Let’s hope it’s just a one-off disconnected show.