Into The Light
When Big Big Train’s frontman David Longdon unexpectedly passed away in 2021, there was uncertainly over whether the band would continue. Now with an updated line-up that includes PFM’s Alberto Bravin on vocals, the multinational collective are back with their 15th album. The Likes Of Us is for anyone who’s ever felt left behind, say the band. We find out about its creation and discover which member has been know to channel his inner Bee Gee after hours.
Trainspotting: Polly Glass Images: Massimo Goina
One night in Germany, during Big Big Train’s last tour, Greg Spawton found himself in the middle of his own audience. Bandmate Nick D’Virgilio had suggested they spice things up by taking their usual pre-show ritual to the fans –quite literally. For Spawton, a softly spoken man with a house full of history books and a career spent largely in studios, it was the latest in a series of unexpected turns: Gigs across the world; a record deal with progressive super-label InsideOutMusic; the recruitment of a singer from Italian prog royalty PFM, who became a creative partner and friend; the death of the man he’d expected to be sharing all this with. Come showtime, the band strode into the crowd. They had their usual huddle. They went onto the stage and the room erupted, the rebirthing power of surprise –of this multinational, multigenerational seven-piece (aged between 30 and 58), plus a brass section –laid bare.
“Suddenly the auditorium was lit up with smiling faces,” Spawton remembers. “Prog is a serious business, and life is a serious business, but it can also be full of pleasure, happiness and laughter. For me, a good gig is when I can look out and see a grown man crying one minute, and then with a big smile on his face a few minutes later.”
That’s Big Big Train, right there –the true side, perhaps, of a band often described as ‘quintessentially English’. Not that it’s unfounded. There are Wordsworthian, pastoral sensibilities in their music. Characters teased out from British history. Strains of Genesis and The Beatles. Neo-prog flashes of Marillion, IQ and Twelfth Night, which Spawton ingested in the 80s, riding into London from Sutton Coldfield on night buses and trains –an insecure 17-year-old finding his tribe alongside Steven Wilson, Jerry Ewing and others.