What better band to see on the day of the gravity waves announcement than Public Service Broadcasting? Purveyors of intelligent pop played over clips from public service information films, a band whose last album was all about the space race. This gig at Rock City was rescheduled from last November and was PSB’s biggest headline show ever, outside of London.
Prior to coming on stage, they play their own public information film about the dangers of filming the gig on your phone. While taking a quick photograph is okay, filming could result in you losing your friends, family and dog due to the quality being so poor.
Opening with recent single Sputnik, as a model of the eponymous satellite was raised over the stage. Bearing in mind how little airplay that single received on the major radio stations, it’s amazing to see a full Rock City. That’s followed up with Theme From Public Service Broadcasting, proving that the banjo still has a place in modern music despite what Mumford & Sons may have you believe.
Much of the set list drew from the more rockier, guitar-based material from debut EP The War Room and first album Inform-Educate-Entertain. Live, Signal 30, with its audio extracts about car crashes reminded me of Vanishing Point by Primal Scream. Meanwhile, even away from the front of the stage, Spitfire got men of a certain age pogoing.
The Race For Space tracks were left to the end where a triumvirate of The Other Side, Go! and Tomorrow closed the show. Go! was a proper sing-a-long moment with each “Go!” shouted back with an accompanying punch of the air and even a cheer for the line, “the eagle has landed”. Can there be a better song to set up an encore than Tomorrow with its talk of departing with hope of return?
And that encore came with the band returning wearing some very snazzy jackets (although according to “frontman” J. Willgoose Esq. he was still wearing his corduroy trousers) They close the night with 70’s funk superhero theme Gagarin, featuring a brass three-piece and Everest.
Trying to describe the concept of Public Service Broadcasting is pretty difficult, yet alone trying to explain how it might work in a live setting. But it really does work, PSB put on an astonishing live experience.
By Gav Squires
@GavSquires
