“So, they look like the cast of a UK reboot of The Big Bang Theory, they love a bit of corduroy, they don’t write proper songs as such, it’s all just done using samples and old clips, and each different album has a theme, like the demise of Welsh coal mining, the US vs Russia race to land on the moon or electricity in Germany”.
If you asked someone to lazily explain Public Service Broadcasting to you, chances are that you would not instantly associate their obvious nicheness with a band as successful as they actually are, with all three of their albums hitting the UK Top 5 – each of which are the closest things you get to a ‘concept album’ these days – but for the last 15 years they have been educating, informing, and entertaining to a larger and larger number of people.
And it’s not just on record they are massive. For the third tour in a row that they have played here in the UK they have sold out the Olympia, one of the bigger venues in the city, and one that now feels like the perfect fit. It’s now difficult to envisage them playing anywhere else in Liverpool.
Just after 9:00pm the lights in this old building dim and PSB’s cleverly innovative short piece of audio kicks in, telling people to have a bit of restraint when it comes to being on their phones at gigs (hear, hear) and not to talk loudly (even more hear, hear), before ambling onstage to an opening duo of tracks from last year’s The Last Flight (a tribute to the life of the American aviation pioneer, Amelia Earhart), ‘Electra’ and a beefed up ‘The Fun Of It’, with vocalist EERA taking care of the vocal parts as she does on all the tracks that have a vocal part tonight.
The first time I saw them live, back in the halcyon days of 2014, their stage set up consisted of three old fashioned tellies on top of each other on either side of the stage, showing the accompanying videos. Tonight the whole backdrop is a landscape in the design of an aeroplane dashboard, with the dials acting as the screens. It’s a lovely touch, and typical of a band whose every move is so eloquently set out.
With such a structured feel to the show with the songs fitting in exactly to match with the visuals to the very second you’d think it would be the same setlist every night. Far from it. On this tour they seem to be changing it every night, especially when it comes to varying the older songs, so early on we are treated to both ‘Theme From PSB‘ and ‘Signal 30‘ from their 2013 debut record (but alas, no ‘Night Mail’).
As the set goes on the crowd are seemingly enraptured and there’s something of a reverential silence between each song, giving it the feel of a theatre performance rather than a normal gig. They are one of the few bands who may actually benefit from playing seated venues rather than standing.
‘Sputnik‘, the first song of the evening from The Race For Space, sees keyboardist Mr B pop out from behind his synth to use a handheld camera to film the rest of the band. This then appears in those dial screens, giving another layer to the visual side. And musically they are note perfect all night (except for an aborted start on ‘White Star Liner’). The line-up is further augmented during ‘Progress’ by The Brassy Gents, a trio of musicians adding an extra brass-laden groove energy to proceedings.
It’s a set with a mix of tracks from each of the albums, but focusing on the latest, with a four song mid-set interlude of newer stuff, from the mellowness of ‘Arabian Flight’ and ‘A Different Kind Of Love’, interspersed with a raging ‘Monsoons’.
Their five albums are like The Spice Girls, everyone’s got their favourite, so everything they play tonight gets an equally joyous reception. This causes sporadic manic dancing breaking out during a riotous ‘Spitfire’, a respectful silence during ‘The Other Side’ (with a massive cheer when they regain contact with the spacecraft), and, best of all, long-time crowd favourite and final main set song ‘Go!’ (who would have thought NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz and GNC would ever garner such a reception?)
The nostalgic encore sees one song off each of the first four records, with the brass-men taking centre stage on the fun-filled ‘Gagarin.’ You then really get the sense that PSB are starting to assemble quite the greatest hits set, which gets better every time you see them.
It’s a 100 minute audio onslaught which ends with the an extended version of traditional closer ‘Everest’, and to deliberately misquote it’s last line…
“Why should a nation take Public Service Broadcasting to their hearts? Because they are great.”
