Only one band could mastermind an album launch event that involves a pub quiz on a boat on the River Thames in the company of a Bulgarian chorus, a tour of London on a Routemaster with Jock Scot as the conductor, and a club night that starts with communist ping pong, a raffle and an interpretative dance number on their lead single.
That band is British Sea Power – or 'British Tea Power', as the mugs on the souvenir stall proclaim – and the album is their fifth, the rather wonderful Machineries Of Joy. They have always had a wonderful knack for the original and the peculiar, and have almost always managed to deliver it without any sense of talking down to their fans or audience.
The band, now six strong, continue to be fiercely passionate in their advocacy of sound environmental practice and opposition to the 'bad things' of the world, and singer / principal songwriter Yan has more recently added to that by wearing literary references to Ray Bradbury rather more boldly on his sleeve. But here again, as in their music, there is a sense of taking those bits of their contemporaries that they know and love, and adding something a little bit different.
The evening begins on the boat, which arrives at Westminster pier at 6:30, and it's all aboard the Valhulla – a bit appropriate, that, given their previous album was Valhalla Dancehall - and we start to enjoy the yelps and sharp tones of the Bulgarian chorus, wearing traditional dress. BBC Radio 6 DJ Shaun Keaveny then proceeds to give a pub quiz that taps into the band's loves – so we get Thin Lizzy's Boys Are Back In Town in a chirpy rendition from the trumpet of Phil Sumner, and then we have to differentiate which 'tit' is genuine – no, not that sort of question! Is a Chimney Tit or a Siberian Tit a genuine species? Answers on a postcard.
Not surprisingly by the time we arrive at the Tower of London we're running a bit late, so the super-fans and those closest to the band board the Routemaster with Jock Scot, and those of us who can't fit on board pile in to a coach that takes us straight to the 100 club and the band's Krankenhaus night. Scot gets up on stage for an amusing introduction, and then we’re in to a short burst of interpretative dance, where three ladies dressed as druids declare themselves to be 'Machineries of Joy'. After this, the album launch proper begins!
The logical first song is the blissful title track, with its throbbing Krautrock-like bass underneath and Byrdsian guitar melody up top. Capping this, as with many songs, is the silvery viola tone of Abigail Fry, who later has an encounter with the band's polar bear. We hear more blissful, spring-like strains from the new album, plus a welcome visitation from the towering Waving Flags, which still sounds epic, even on the 100 Club scale – all the more so with the Bulgarian chorus called into action once again.
There is a frenetic, pumped up version of 'Apologies To Insect Life', its vocals delivered with great gusto by Savages singer Jehnny Beth, while 'No Lucifer' and the late tandem of 'Carrion' and 'All In It' make a rousing closing paragraph, for which we are joined onstage by the massive polar bear, dispensing love and hugs to everyone. There'll be no fines from the Norwegians for this sort of behaviour towards the animal – quite the opposite, as everyone goes home from here wreathed in smiles.
British Sea Power played: Machineries Of Joy, Remember Me, Favours In The Beetroot Fields, Bear, Spring Is Sprung, Loving Animals, Waving Flags, Great Skua, Apologies To Insect Life, Mongk ii, No Lucifer, Warmwire, What You Need The Most, K Hole, Carrion, All in it
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