Isle Of Wight sextet The Bees have always been unashamedly retro in everything they do. Since arriving in 2002, they have produced summery, psychedelic pop music that could have been plundered from Woodstock. They’ve never really gained much of a following; so, on the tour to support their fourth album, they are still playing to the upstairs room of the O2 Academy. Having said that, their failure to penetrate the mainstream doesn’t seem to have dampened their spirits.

Their songs range from extremely cheerful to full on ecstatic, with Hammond organs wailing, brass instruments parping and choruses that appear to have been copied and pasted from a time when it was sin not to wear tie dye. The bulk of the tracks tonight sound like the perkiest cuts from Love, Abbey Road era Beatles and early ELO — jaunty and throwaway, each built round a studied groove. Tracks like Wash in the Rain sounds like the Rolling Stones covering the Drifters and their biggest hit, Chicken Payback, feels like it has been lifted straight from Mamas and Papas.

This doesn’t change with any of the tracks they air from their fourth album Every Step’s A Yes; it just shows that the band haven’t really broadened their musical horizons, they’ve just plundered a different part of the sixties for their influences. Tired of Loving is the kind of track 10cc were writing at the peak of their powers, while Winter Rose has a wistful, early Pink Floyd-esque psychedelia to it.

The Bees are a perfectly capable live band, who clearly know their way around the sixties. They do, though, too often stray into tribute band territory and never produce anything that betters the musicians that inspired them. Playing homage might work for a record or two, but you can’t make a career out of it and The Bees don’t seem to have the ambition or will to try anything really innovative.