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Review: Public Service Broadcasting, Strange Brew – ‘Didn’t quite translate’
“We’re Public Service Broadcasting from south London and we’ve got some songs for you,” says J. Willgoose Esquire, tweeds donned and bowtie bobbing, as he picks up his guitar. “Top banter,” a guy to my left smirks to his friend.
The comments set the tone for the rest of the evening: an almost painfully polite performance from the band that have been called ‘the toff Mogwai’ who are known for their skilled production of sonically big, musically dexterous aural collages but did not create tonight the type of warm audience connection a venue like this requires to set a crowd at ease.
Big band on a small stage: Public Service Broadcasting seemed a little unnerved by the intimate nature of the show – photo: Simon Alexander
They start with a clutch of tracks from the new album, The Last Flight, both jaunty 80s-style and low-key introspective numbers featuring the fresh, dreamy voice of guest singer EERA. She emulates This is the Kit‘s Kate Stables on latest single The South Atlantic and leads on a marked departure for the band with their collaborative alt-pop track A Different Kind of Love.
Willgoose is an impressively dexterous player, sometimes of two instruments at once – photo: Simon Alexander
When Willgoose announces, after half an hour, that “that’s the end of the new stuff – we don’t have a 20 piece string orchestra here, and we need to leave some dry eyes in the house,” it’s hard not to imagine a collective sigh of relief, very tangibly reflected in the first woops and cheers of the night as the band kick in and devote themselves fully to what they call their “greatest hits megamix” in the second half.
Big tune after big tune is rolled out, and the crowd responds with delight: Blue Heaven, Sputnik, Go! and Apollo all show off the band’s penchant for effective builds with live looping, driving rhythms, and catchy hooks – all backed by those fantastic visuals, from vintage scenes to eye-catching contemporary dance.
The crowd responded with huge enthusiasm to the ‘greatest hits megamix’ of the second half – photo: Ursula Billington
Willgoose shows off his skills tapping a guitar line with the left hand and playing keys with his right; but it’s the guitar tech who seems to be the hardest working team member on stage, and he also doubles as the guitarist’s barman, handing him bottles of beer on request.
The warm tones of a flugelhorn were a nice addition to the collage of sounds on display – photo: Ursula Billington
Fair enough, they’ve put in the work today: this is their second of the day at Strange Brew due to ticket demand for these atypically intimate gigs. But as we filter out into the rain after a cool hour-long show that’s over by 9.30pm on the dot, there’s a sense it’s all fallen abit flat.
It’s unusual for a high profile performance to feel that it would benefit from a bigger space. But the PSB experience just didn’t quite translate in this setting. It was a real coup for the independent 330-cap venue to secure such a huge name, and kudos to them for packing their space out all day off the back of it. It’s just a shame the band didn’t quite deliver.
Main image: Simon Alexander
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