Roughly a decade ago, Big Big Train was a fairly obscure 18-year-old progressive rock band that had parted ways with two different lead singers, nearly imploded more than once, and was down again to co-founders Greg Spawton (guitars, keys, songs) and Andy Poole (bass and production). Their search for reinforcements was assisted greatly by ace soundman Rob Aubrey, who helped connect the pair with first Spock\u2019s Beard drummer Nick D\u2019Virgilio, and then vocalist and songwriter David Longdon. Ten years, six acclaimed studio albums, and a handful of highly anticipated live shows later, the rebirthed Big Big Train\u2019s latest release, the double-live album Merchants Of Light<\/i>, recently landed at #2 on the UK rock album charts. <\/p>\n
As my dad would say, \u201cIt\u2019s quite a story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merchants Of Light<\/i> collects the best performances of each song in the band\u2019s set during last summer\u2019s sold-out three-show run at Cadogan Hall in London, with the setlist delivering a sort of capsulized narrative of that remarkable decade-long journey. Songs from most of the band\u2019s recent run of albums are featured, from 2009\u2019s The Underfall Yard<\/i> through English Electric Parts One<\/i> (2012) and Two<\/i> (2013) to the more recent Folklore<\/i> (2016) and Grimspound<\/i> (2017).\u00a0 <\/p>\n
On Merchants<\/i>, the band\u2019s expanded-for-live-work lineup includes Spawton (now on bass), Poole (now on keys and acoustic guitar), Longdon (vocals and flute), D\u2019Virgilio (drums and background vocals), Dave Gregory (guitars, ex-XTC), Danny Manners (keys), Rachel Hall (violin and background vocals) and Rikard Sj\u00f6blom (guitars, keys and background vocals, ex-Beardfish). This veritable rock orchestra is further supported by a five-man horn section comprised of Dave Desmond (trombone), Ben Godfrey (trumpet), Nick Stones (French horn), John Storey (euphonium) and Jon Truscott (tuba).<\/p>\n
Fielding this massive 13-person lineup allows the band to faithfully reproduce the complex, multilayered compositions they craft in the studio, no small feat. It\u2019s a daunting enough task that some jitters, flubs, and lagging moments are to be expected\u2014and yet, they never come. The performances captured on Merchants Of Light<\/i> are remarkable both for the intricacy of the music being played, 13-strong, dancing on that live-gig high wire, but also for the billowing emotion invested as the band feeds off the energy they\u2019re getting back from the audience and harnesses it to power these songs to fresh new heights. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The opening sequence is all adrenalin, as Manners, Hall and the brass section warm up the crowd with the brief, classically-inclined \u201cFolklore Overture\u201d before the rest of the band emerges to deliver the anthemic title track to Folklore<\/i>. \u201cBrave Captain,\u201d the dynamic album-opener from Grimspound<\/i>, follows, a stirring one-two punch that knocks the crowd back on their heels. From there the first set alternates between gentler pastoral numbers (the lonely \u201cLast Train\u201d and the philosophical \u201cMeadowland\u201d) and a pair of prog epics, \u201cLondon Plane\u201d and \u201cA Mead Hall In Winter.\u201d Each of the latter features abrupt time signature shifts and heady jams that require the entire group to twist and turn on a dime\u2014which they do, with alacrity, delivering renditions that are astonishing both for their faithfulness to the studio versions and for the robust emotion these performances manifest. <\/p>\n
The keys to it all are three: every member of this ensemble sounds fully invested in this music, every one of them brings their \u201cA\u201d game, and every one of them feels essential to the performance you hear captured. Having said that, and with all due praise to the entire remarkable ensemble, one individual note: if this isn\u2019t the single most impressive performance of drummer \/ background vocalist \/ musical sparkplug Nick D\u2019Virgilio\u2019s estimable career, I\u2019d really like to know what is.<\/p>\n
The moments keep coming in the second set, as the band sails through an abbreviated, slightly rocked-up version of \u201cExperimental Gentlemen\u201d before tackling the melancholy \u201cSwan Hunter.\u201d The latter, a relative obscurity drawn from 2013\u2019s English Electric Part Two<\/i>, is transformed into a highlight here as Longdon\u2019s powerful, Gabrielesque lead vocals blend with and play off of the background chorus of D\u2019Virgilio, Hall and Sjoblom. There is something absolutely magical about this particular combination of voices, and the precision and complexity of the vocal arrangements is a critical part of the BBT sound in the same way it was for classic Yes.<\/p>\n
After an energetic run at fan favorite \u201cJudas Unrepentant\u201d (the tale of a rascally art forger), BBT delivers a masterful performance of one of its most sublime creations, Spawton\u2019s \u201cThe Transit of Venus Across The Sun.\u201d Horns, guitars, keys and voices propel the audience into the stratosphere on this timeless tale of romantic longing, which sets up the closing sequence beautifully.<\/p>\n