BIG BIG TRAIN
Empire
A sumptuous document of a band in imperious live form.
Beautifully shot and stylishly packaged, this must-see Blu-ray captures Big Big Train’s performance at London’s Hackney Empire back in November 2019, the last night of their well-received UK Grand Tour. “I’m glad we chose to record this show,” writes singer David Longdon in the liners. “It was an important moment in Big Big Train history.” Concerts have been a rare part of that history, but when they’ve happened – from Kings Place to the Night Of
BIG BIG TRAIN CAN HOLD
THEIR OWN LIVE WITH THE VERY BEST OF THEM.
The Prog Festival in Germany – the sense of event has been palpable, and so it is here.
In this beautiful theatre, Big Big Train are 13 members strong (including Cosmograf’s Robin Armstrong and Dave Desmond’s essential brass ensemble) and perform music from their latter day catalogue in highly accomplished style. Stunning prog epics like Voyager, Winkie and Theodora In Green And Gold are sumptuously delivered to a highly receptive crowd, with the four-part vocal arrangements really coming to the fore. Given the quality of the material, the pedigree of the players and the crystal sound mix from trusted engineer Rob Aubrey, the richness of the musical information coming off the stage is often overwhelming.
Opener Alive is them at their most accessible, a hooky song crafted for the stage by Longdon, who is such a singular, engaging presence. With slightly gawky, warmly knowing theatricality, he dons pilot’s goggles in Brave Captain
(a performance that leaves him in a heap on the stage floor), wears his Green Man mask in Wassail. He sips from his big Union Jack mug then quietly expounds on Da Vinci in the pre-amble to the beautiful The Florentine.
Watching Nick D’Virgilio playing drums is like watching Roger Federer play tennis: he’s simply sublime, born to do it. Greg Spawton – stoic and focused on bass here – has said that Big Big Train is a band of frontmen, with Longdon and D’Virgilio joined by Rikard Sjöblom, who plays some incredible, gutsy guitar and synth, with a perma-smile on his face. Stage left, Dave Gregory weaves his own consummate spell, enriching the likes of goosebump inducing closer, East Coast Racer.
Sadly Gregory, uber-talented keyboardist Danny Manners and Rachel Hall (whose soaring violin and sweet vocals add so much texture to the band’s sound) have all since left the ranks. There’s a tinge of nostalgia then, even sadness, in seeing this chapter in the band’s history come to a close. The next is yet to be written, but let Empire show that by 2019 Big Big Train could hold their own with the very best of them. They’ll always have Hackney…