Sea Power at The Trinity Bristol, Thursday 17 April 2025
Bank. Holiday. Weekend. The three most beautiful words in the English language. Downing tools at the end of Thursday (or Thursday lunchtime, if you work from home and feel extra sneaky), and enjoying four days of pure freedom.
This Easter bank holiday, I decided to pack in as much live music as possible. I booked tickets for three different gigs, two in Bristol and one right here in Worcester. Friday saw me heading down to Bristol to catch Sea Power (FKA British Sea Power, FFKA British Air Power) at The Trinity before slingshotting back to Worcester to experience the cosmic dross of Henge at the Marr’s Bar, and finally heading back to Bristol then next day for Derimic Effigy – a multimedia exhibition hosted at iconic indie venue The Louisiana by the Cellar Door.
I slammed my laptop shut on Thursday evening and rushed to catch a train to Temple Medes. I’ve been wanting to see Sea Power for a long time now. I love their earlier Pixies-style shouty indie tunes (Apologies to Insect Life is a great example of this), but I equally hold a place in my heart for their atmospheric later works. For their show at The Trinity (a beautiful former church converted into a venue), they were performing a selection of their soundtracks – featuring music from Man of Arran, Disco Elysium, and From the Sea to the Land Beyond.
As soon as I arrived at the venue I knew I would be in good company. There were multiple guests in attendance cosplaying Harry DuBois, the amnesiac alcoholic detective protagonist of the aforementioned Disco Elysium – for which Sea Power provided an excellent soundtrack.
In Disco Elysium, the mournful Sea Power dirge “The Smallest Church in Sussex” was reworked to fit the fictional universe of the game as “The Smallest Church in Saint Saens”, and “Up Against It” was mixed into a catchy suite of muzak for the game’s starting area – a ramshackle canteen named the Whirling-In-Rags.
After chatting in the line with a few “detectives”, it was time for the first act. White Magic for Lovers, consisting of Brighton-based husbands Tom (guitar, harmonica and vocals) and Alfie (bass and vocals). The couple set the atmosphere of the show perfectly, performing a selection of gorgeous original tunes. They harmonised beautifully, creating a fantastic soundscape. I’m certainly going to keep following this act to see how their sound evolves.
After a break, it was Sea Power time. They opened the show with a thumping crescendo, layering guitar, drums, bass, synth and violin to produce a brutal wall of sound, washing into a blasting cornet – the sound of which will be familiar to any Disco Elysium fan, as it is used as a recurring motif in the game’s incidental music.
At times the band was cast in shadow, lit only by noise-reactive fairy lights on branches behind them. Lovely stuff.
One thing that surprised me was how they played their Smallest Church track early in their set. I assumed they would save the fan favourites for an encore, but at this show it served as a lovely bridge between heavier tracks. The crowd waited with bated breath to hear if the smallest church was going to be in Sussex or Saint Saens. This wasn’t missed by Sea Power guitarist and vocalist Neil Hamilton Wilkinson, who left a short beat between lyrics to play with our anticipation. This time, the church was in Sussex.
I would often go there
To the tiny church there
The smallest church in Saint Saens/Sussex
Though it once was larger
They also performed Up Against It, where the crowd went absolutely bananas. For a few minutes I was transported to the fictional port city of Revachol, and I was waiting in the lobby of the Whirling-In-Rags for my dysfunctional detective partner to scrape himself off the floor and get on with his case. You really can’t beat this kind of immersion.
Finally, the chosen song for the encore was Red Rock Rivera. Originally used in From the Sea to the Land Beyond, a documentary film covering 100 years in the life of the British coastline. The familiar cornet blasted out the iconic melody and the track evolved into a gorgeous post-rock soundscape, before the addition of gut-punch lyrics.
I’ll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
I’ll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside
Down by the seaside
By the seaside
As someone who frequently fantasises about escaping from my life and starting afresh somewhere besides the sea, my eyes were damp.
It was a beautiful evening, and I was ready for the absolute tone shift that awaited me the next day – join me in my next article to hear what I thought of Henge at the Marr’s Bar!
By Jack Phillips