Ended up rediscovering this charming video of the last song they played at the second set of theirs I ever saw, in a little tent on Sunday afternoon at Glastonbury 2008. They closed the set with Ooby Dooby Do, a silly and obscure song (it’s the B-side to one of the Waving Flags 7" singles) that I think they’ve barely ever played live. Really enjoy the commitment to doing some Rock! tomfoolery in the crowd, even when the crowd is all sitting on the floor. It’s good fun isn’t it?
I think seeing this as well as the more ‘proper’ BSP sets at the festival marked them out as a bit weirder and more interesting to me: that plus the fact they brought the London Bulgarian Choir along to the festival to sing on Waving Flags.
tbf when i saw them around then, Noble was trying to leap onto pillars or get onto people’s shoulders mid-song so I imagine he was fine with being wrestled
when i was about 16 i used to go to parties with loads of foliage that i found in the park selotaped to me, which i think is an idea i got from reading about british sea power. i left a trail of branches and leaves.
Good for them, I can understand their reasoning. I always liked the name, more or less for the reasons they state, but the context around it has changed in two decades, and I can see how the name could put some people off even listening to them.
I hope they don’t get sucked into the culture war hellhole: I saw a BBC news bulletin about it weirdly enough.
I mean, I’m not saying I disagree with their reasoning entirely but it takes a bit of a stretch to argue that British exceptionalism/nationalism has only become a problem since the band formed.
Still at least they haven’t gone the Lady Antebellum route and found a way to change their name to something that’s somehow more offensive.
EDIT: not that I think “British Sea Power” is offensive. It was a good name and this is just going to piss off the usual rent-a-gobs, which on reflection is probably A Good Thing, I just worry that it plays into the very worst of the culture war narratives
just remembering i mentioned them to a friend a couple of years ago who thought they sounded a bit fash so i had to link her Waving Flags to prove otherwise
if they get that a lot then i can understand wanting shot of it
Oh for sure, obviously it’s not like those legacies have just recently come to light or become a thing.
I think what I mean about context change is that British nationalism and exceptionalism has been extra mainstreamed and instrumentalised in the last decade. I’m thinking of the Cameron Tories leaning into Keep Calm Carry On austerity-vintage aesthetics, then UKIP and Brexit and the resultant culture war, and the current Tories exploiting patriotism and racism to stay in power.
Not that Blair and New Labour didn’t also do this somewhat, but their branding was more about modernising and ‘newness’ and less about imperial nostalgia. I feel like in 2002 the kind of aesthetic they used in all their artwork around Decline could read as dusty and half-forgotten and therefore ripe for reinterpretation and reimagining. Whereas post-2012 that aesthetic has been politicised by the right.
It is a shame, because I think it was a great name if you understood where they were coming from. But it must be horrible people assuming you are fash or nostalgia-tories, so fair play to them. BSP was an all-time great band name abbreviation though.