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| The end of the show... |
Monday night (1 Nov 2021) saw me go to a concert (hard pop / soft rock according to the band) for the first time in a long time. I went to see Public Service Broadcasting at the O2 Academy with my eldest. This was his first proper concert like this; he'd been to a Doctor Who musical event, but PSB are one of his bands so it was a bit special for him. The show was spectacular. I especially loved the rawness that the live show gave the music compared to the highly polished presentation that the albums have.
COVID controls were good - I had to show my pass and Nat had to show his LFT result from the same day (as he's under 16); people seemed to be spacing sensibly on the balcony, although there was less mask-wearing than I expected. It felt safe, although more subdued than when standing and singing along. Although a lot of PSB tracks are probably more talk along to!
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| The Other Side (If I remember right) |
We sat next to a man attending with his 8-year-old son. Apparently, his son listened to PSB's Race for Space album regularly going to sleep, and they were joking that he may fall asleep. This amused me, and I mentioned that Nathan was also at his first proper concert and we were lucky it wasn't Faithless, because he used to go to sleep with the album 'To All New Arrivals' playing. That was the bit where I found out that the man was involved in the Faithless fan club and they were his other band. It's a small world.
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| The Setlist (original here) |
The new album Bright Magic - which is far more instrumental than previous releases - went down brilliantly. The show was definitely full-on son et lumière, with a spectacular light show. Being in Yorkshire, they chose to play more of the songs from Every Valley due to the coal mining link than they had elsewhere. If you listen to the album and like it, I recommend the associated podcast, where they deconstruct it and explain how it was made and the influences on it. The tracks from Race for Space and Inform - Educate - Entertain like Spitfire and Go! brought the house down, and the final sections where People, Let's Dance segued into Gargarin was awesome.
All in all, a great evening out.
6 November 2021
I missed out on a chase to see them in Lincoln a few years back so I'm properly jealous. I wasn't so keen on Every Valley but really liked Inform - Educate - Entertain. My favourite though is the EP The War Room.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite is 'Race for Space', although my most played track from that is Korolev which isn't on the album (B-Side to Sputnik). 'Bright Magic' is growing on me increasingly. I wasn't sure how it would land live but it was great. I'd wanted to see them with Nat when they did Race for Space live at Manchester with a link event with an astronaut talk, but he was too young. It seemed unfair to go without him. I was tempted though.
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