Sea Power

The seventh gig on our A to Z musical adventure was ……

Sea Power at SWG3 in Glasgow.

The theme of playing well kent albums as whole live performances, is not a knew thing on the gigging circuit. Primal Scream have been playing Screamadelica for years like this, playing the whole album followed by a string of their best tracks from throughout their long career. Classic album + other great recording output = a formula that draws in similar crowds from when they were first released.

Another vinyl blast from the not too distant past….Live

Album Background

Do You Like Rock Music? was the third album from the Brighton-based English band, Sea Power, then known as British Sea Power. It was released on 14 January 2008 in the UK and 12 February 2008 in the United States.
It entered the UK Albums Chart at number 10.

When the album was reviewed on it’s release in 2008, it wasn’t met to the highest acclaim. NME in a lengthy review “…… But that’s where the problem lies…Much of Do you Like Rock Music? just feels too familiar…”. The Guardian meanwhile ended their review with “…. Do you Like Rock Music? is the glorious sound of a unique band going forward.” Finally, Pitchfork claimed “….Despite the implications of the band name (British) Sea Power don’t work as well as this size and scope. They’re in danger of become the Alarm to the Arcade Fire’s U2.

Which just goes to prove that music, like art, literature and our other cultural assets, remains a personal preference. Me? I liked the album then, and listening to it in the days leading up to the gig, I like it just as much.

Bronagh and me, (for the pedantics amongst us, it’s a blog so ‘I’ and ‘myself’, have been dropped in favour of ‘me’ by me!!) first saw them at Oran Mor back in 2013 and, from memory, it was a great wee gig with many of the tracks being played tonight as part of the 15th anniversary of the album’s release, forming a fair part of that earlier set.

And so to the gig

Like ABC on Friday, the gig was set up in two parts with the first a reprise of the album in its entirety and the second, the encore if you like, a mix of the best tracks from their other albums, ending as it begun with the anthemic All In It.

SWG3 TV Studio was packed almost to capacity as the band hit the stage exactly on time, for reasons that will become clear later.

Lights down, fairy lights on. Yes, the light show consisted of fairy lights on the various tree branches that formed the evening’s backdrop. Which just goes to prove you don’t need a sophisticated mega bucks showcase to provide a great night’s entertainment.

Then bang, we’re All In It blasts out of the speakers. We certainly were, and for the next 90 minutes the band ‘ran’ through the album tracks with barely a murmur to the appreciative audience. Bad manners? Not really. As was explained, curfew at SWG3 was 10pm and the 90 minute set time was stretching the creativity of the band to enhance the recordings for the live audience and have enough time to run through half a dozen songs from their other recording output.

My own favourite live renditions of the album tracks were undoubtedly the ‘Easy Easy’ backing for No Lucifer, Waving Flags and Atom.

Were we ‘All In It’? We certainly were, and us auld timers were back home in time for our nightly Horlicks and Match of the Day 2!

About the venue

And during the gig ……. very intimate.