One day on a cold, wet, autumnal lunchtime I was standing outside my Sixth Form College in Hereford vaguely wondering whether to spend the free period I had after lunch messing around, surfing the web or actually getting on with some work when I was approached by a friend of mine.

“Hey Pat” he said “Here’s that CD I said I’d lend you, British Sea Power’s album” , “Great, thanks Ed!” I said and hurried inside out of the cold.

It had been a couple of weeks earlier that Ed had first mentioned the group to me. “British Sea Power”. Hmmm. Weird name, I thought. Sounds very eccentric but then more often than not that’s a good thing. “They’re great, you’ll love them, they kind of fuse rock with folk” (upon listening it transpired that this observation was not a particularly accurate one). I examined the CD cover. It was a card, gatefold style case with a motif of leaves on the front.

I was pondering all this as I wandered down towards the library, CD clutched firmly in hand (I’d decided to waste the free period as frivolously as I could). I sat down at a computer, opened up the unusual case, inserted the disk and let the music wash over me.

I’d be lying if I said that it was ‘love at first listen’, any music needs time to grow on me, but as I listened more and more I realised that this was music unlike any other I had heard. Through layers of sound, intelligent and poetic lyrics and a touch of something unusual and unique, this music spoke to me like nothing else.

Here’s some rather boring facts about BSP. I thought I’d better include them because otherwise there’s a fair chance you’ll learn nothing from reading this article. If you know anything about BSP at all you’d be advised to skip it. In spring 2000 the band was formed. Brothers Yan and Hamilton, on vocals and bass respectively were joined by old school friend Woody (drums) and Noble (lead guitar).

In 2001 the group started to host Club Sea Power nights in their hometown of Brighton and ambitiously recorded and produced their first single, Fear Of Drowning on their own record label Golden Chariot Records. Early in 2003 they signed up “The Official Fleet Reserve” in the form of Eamon on keyboard and in September 2003 they released The Decline Of British Sea Power, the album that Ed lent me all that time ago.

In April 2005 the band released their second album, Open Season.

Once you have a formula it’s easy to be good. The beauty of a truly great band to my mind lies in diversity.

Apologies to Insect Life, a 1.5 min, distortion driven powerhouse of a song about Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “A great man but not very nice to ants”, is as brilliant as it is different to the gentle acoustic melodies of Childhood Memories or Salty Water.

Soaring, anthemic, “landscape-rock” songs such as Lately, True Adventures and Larsen B seem to lift the natural beauty of the geographical world and transcribe directly into raw musical form.

BSP are always particularly adept at portraying the valleys, fells, lakes and fens of the English countryside, something that I’ve grown up in and felt a great love for all my life.

The problem with being a little bit unusual and doing something different of course is that you often get labelled, pigeonholed, branded, stereotyped and all manner of other nasty things that sound like something that happens to car parts in a factory.

British Sea Power are apparently famous for, though very importantly, not limited to:

• Decorating the stage with foliage
• Sounding like various bands from the 80s
• Putting on one of the most energetic stage shows you’ll ever be lucky enough to see
• Decorating the stage with foliage
• A love of animals, nature and all things outdoors
• Associations with water, the sea and drowning
• Decorating the stage with foliage.
• Associations with pioneers of early flight
• And umm, decorating the stage with foliage

The first time I saw British Sea Power was in August 2004 at the Reading Festival. I was as blown away by the live experience as I had hoped to be.

Carrion melted into Rock In A and I turned to the person next to me and said, “That’s it, I can die happy now”! I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around in a dazed state, clutching a salvaged piece of foliage.

In, what I see as a nice stroke of synchronicity, my tenth BSP gig was exactly a year later back in the same tent at Reading Festival. In the year that past between these stunning festival performances my love of the band has taken me to many places, meeting many great people. Long may British Sea Power rule the waves!