Friday 9/9, The Sandringham Hotel
The Lighthouse Keepers were such a good band, and so relatively little known, that they could seem (as with the Craven Fops or successor to the Keepers, Widdershins) as if they were something you and two or three of your friends had dreamt up between yourselves. But that could just be me: I was solipsistic even for a student, and wore out my copy of their album Tales of the Unexpected while feeling sorry for myself and mooning over girls.
So, the show last Friday was excellent, and I was happy to buy a copy of their new compilation Ode to Nothing as soon as some young persons had politely bumped me out of the way with a folding table and a box of CDs.
The next day I found myself with earworms of great songs I hadn’t listened to in years like ‘Ocean Liner’ and ‘Wheels Over The Desert’ and ‘A Time Of Evil’ and a mood that varied from regretful to flat-out depressed.
This was not the Lighthouse Keepers’ fault, but a lesson to be heeded: beware the Angstworm, the earworm of a song which you listened to incessantly when you were sad. Especially if it’s charming, bittersweet, well-crafted pop.
Those of you without any such associations are encouraged to partake of any Lighthouse Keepers’ material you can lay hands on, because they really are that good.
