Big Big Train – Stoller Hall Manchester: Live Review

Mike Ainscoe

2 years ago

Big Big Train – Stoller Hall, Manchester – Wednesday 25th September 2024

2024 has been a year where you’re never too far from BBT activity, with our most recent encounter at their Cropredy debut in August. That English Electric weighted festival set – as warmly nostalgic as it was – is now well behind and the current tour setlist is about looking confidently forward.

The current line up too is much changed from the one which was immortalised in the A Flare On The Lens live release from the London shows on the tour schedule of 2023. Trimmed down and tight, yet with an even greater musical armoury at their disposal.

Reading through manager Nick Shilton’s comments in the tour programme (another fabulous production btw), he’s passionate about growing BBT – gigging and taking the music on the road is aa major focus and there is already talk of a BBT ‘Marillion-style’ weekend. Don’t put a gig at the Royal Albert Hall beyond the realms of possibility either. Surely Passengers would flock to fill the iconic venue. Meanwhile, in the now…

The current UK/Euro schedule is a genuine The Likes Of Us tour, showcasing the new album that’s had several month’s to become entrenched in the psyches of band and audience. Only Bookmarks misses out in a set that starts and ends with the new material while gems, some most surprising for those averse to setlist spoilers, from the ever growing (and when you look at it, very healthy) library of work are dotted between.

BBT 2024 is a remodelled new beast with a new purpose. Stage front and centre, decked out in their fanboy band colours, the Heavy Metal duo – Bravin (in Black Sabbath Master Of Reality top) & Sjöblom (I still haven’t got to grips with how Alberto pronounces his buddy’s surname – in a Yessongs design) are flanked and often usurped by aa band who like a solid midfielder, cover every inch of the stage. The likes of drummer Nick D’Vigilio and no longer ‘just’ the violin player, Clare Lindley, both flirt with additional instruments and different places in the lineup. Even Oskar Holdorrf abandons his main keyboard rig for a brief moment to dip his toes in the waters at stage front while the new brass section, Paul Mitchell ventures forth at key moments for some warm and piercing trumpetting.

The first batch of The Likes Of Us is dusted off, with the high octane instrumental opening, Oskar silhouetted in the lights that pour from the rear of the stage, providing the overture for Oblivion. There’s not long to wait for the new epic and now the track that’s possibly the centrepiece of the set. Beneath The Masts sees the players morph to new spots to begin a journey through sections that range from the delicate where the iconic sound of twelve strings filling the hall, to the mid section maesltrom where the instrumentalist let loose and the grandiose finale. The latter is set to become of of our ‘big big bits‘ and an iconic moment in the legacy with a spine tingling Prog Rock moment.

The song see Rikard donning the double neck that’s to play a big part of his evening and has Clare Lindley – the swan of Big Big Train , all calm and serene yet working her socks off – on a myriad of different parts have her violin reverb-ing and soaring into the rafters. Observing her at close quarters, her contribution is remarkable in the way she simply wears a cherubic smile whilst switching from the violin to the front and centre keyboard rig, trying out both 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and singing BVs (whilst holding a chord or two on her keyboard). Next stop taking Alberto’s spot on the drums when Nick steps up to multitask on guitar and lead vocals for Telling The Bees?

When the time arrives for the first of a couple of moments in the set that have that feeling of ‘I didn’t expect that’ or ‘where has that come from?’, who should step up to the mic but Gregory Spawton. Totally appropriate that he should provide the intro to The Last English King being a song from waaay back in BBT history. Ahead of his brief recollection of the period around 1066 and the song itself, he makes reference to local lad Paul Mitchell’s roots in Bury – incidentally, home of the ATB HQ – and his own affinity with own affinity with local heroes Elbow and his man crush on Guy Garvey. Perhaps next time Greg, we’ll take you on a tour around the market, the Elbow hotspots and have a trip on the 524 bus route.

The song is beautifully polished look back, almost medieval in nature at one point and the news that Bard has had/will be getting a remix and be made available next year is greeted with warm intakes of breath. And did anyone spot guitar tech Adam with his paper crown (beautifully decorated – clearly a dab hand with a box of felt tips as well as his tuning skills).

The irrepressible Nick D’Virgilio barely has time to catch his breath as he dashes back to the kit after leading Telling The Bees before Alberto is demanding a groove. “It’s coming! Any minute now!” as he deals with the in ear monitors and then gets joined by the audience as he sets up a beat with Alberto teasing a little Beatles riff – perhaps being Manchester he should have opted for a little Love Will Tear Us Apart – on the riff that sounds like its about to break into sounds like Kim Wilde’s Kids In America.

Five lead vocalists take a verse apiece and the little keyboard and bass section mid song (that wouldn’t be out of place on Fragile or The Yes Album) where Spawton and Oskar Holrdorff, don’t quite duel, but complement one another with their high notes, and the thick slabs of bass pedal at the end make this a personal highlight of the evening. And we’ll just park the thought that this could be a great encore song…

…in the same way that Apollo has become established as the perfect closing piece. The seven work their way through their jazzy chops, the Apollo fanfare kicks in and goosebumps prickle. The calm before the storm sees Alberto take the lead line and Clare heads to the centre stage keyboard rig – “are you ready?” she teases the front rows as the tune takes off into the stratosphere. Any thoughts that we might miss the power of the brass quartet are blown away by Paul Mitchell and the two keyboard onslaught.

In his first gigs,this was the point where Alberto stood at the back shaking a tambourine. These days he’s exhorting the crowd to its collective feet and if at all humanly possible, joining the throng. The Stoller can’t offer space at the front of the stalls for Alberto to wield his lighting tube – we know, we’re there on the front row and close enough to be in danger of a thick edge from Alberto’s cricket bat in Last Eleven – so he simply goes down the sides and around the auditorium and into the gallery.

It’s a mighty finale and returning for Love Is The Light provides a lower key calming closure. It’s possibly the only place the band can go after giving their all for the last nine minutes. Back on the Common Ground album, David Longdon sang how “These days are going to test us.” Prophetic words in hindsight, but a useful phrase to coin when we’re able to witness Big Big Train take on 2024 and emerge with their colours flying proudly from the mast.

A brief word on Haunt The Woods from Cornwall, one of a variety of support bands on the tour. When their social media description talks of “sublime sound that emanates from the landscape” it’s a phrase well chosen.

Their Alt nature sees them alternate between dreamy Post Rock ambience, proggy arrangements and a dynamic that shifts from the easy acoustic gentility that carries the likes of Said And Done to what some may have heard as a nod to Opeth in their opening few moments (the lighter side as opposed to demonic Death Metal).

In Jonathan Stafford, they have a singer/frontman who is what Gregory’s hero Guy Garvey would call “Spitfire thin and strung like a violin” – overwrought and angsty, a deep emotion channelled into some of the more intesne parts of the set, you can understand the considerable excitement in some quarters, in the recent announcement as a support band on the Marillion weekend in Holland next year.

They have an new album in Ubiquity, released on Spinefarm Records (in itself a thrilling partnership) which is bound to have a few new takers on the evidence of their forty minute amuse bouche.