By Jase Walker
Post-rock is one of those genres that on the surface level has a smattering of bands seemingly doing similar stuff right? But then you start to dig deeper and really delve into this world and you find that many bands have fantastically unique elements and Public Service Broadcasting really caught my attention with their ‘Race To Space’ album and I managed to catch the anniversary show of it in Wakefield Science Museum no less. So after many years, I’ve got the chance to see them again up the road from where I live at Melkweg. Along for the ride is EERA who after doing a bit of checking in has actually supported PBS on a previous EU tour.
I’ve got myself my usual spot for reviews in Melkweg’s OZ stage on the balcony so I’ve got a really good view of the stage and it’s absolutely rammed with equipment although I don’t see PBS’s Sputnik replica from their last show which is a bit of a shame!
EERA takes the stage with very little introduction and begins her set, just her and an electric guitar in hand. Her voice is so characteristically sweet that I see in a lot of Norwegian singers such as Aurora and the singer of Kalandra. The guitar work is reminiscent of shoegaze in that she uses chords that have many open strings with a “rough” guitar tone. I do wish she’d speak up a bit in-between songs as it’s quite hard to make out. Still though, this is a bit of a different way to open a show for a band like PBS that are generally quite energetic.
This probably isn’t the sort of thing I would listen to day to day but this is a real lovely chilled intro for the evening. She blanks for a moment mid-song but takes it in good stride and gets a brief chuckle from the crowd before moving on.
Also featuring a quick guest spot with someone on the trumpet, again I couldn’t quite make out who she said as she still speaks fairly softly. Seemingly not just a trumpet either, a bizarre noisebox also that sounds like a bizarre theremin. A thoroughly enjoyable start to this show, but not long to go before the energy ramps up with Public Service Broadcasting!
Prior to PSB starting, I noticed that the screens either side of the stage in addition to one at the back of the stage are briefly tested with what looked like a plane or flight sim dashboard. The dials light up prior to the band taking the stage and as they walk on, the centre and top two dials become animated “screens” playing various clips of early flights and the like. I’ve also just noticed it appears that EERA is on stage with PBS albeit in a very different outfit. Either way, ‘Towards The Dawn’ kicks off this show in a spectacular fashion, and it’s time for PBS to do their thing! One of the members temporarily abandons his station to film the other members on stage and have it feed back to the screens. I knew I was in for an interesting show but this is already past that and we’ve barely started.
It’s fascinating how much of a quick and well oiled operation their live show is with constantly changing guitars almost every song or switching instruments entirely. Each switch is made deftly with the stage techs making changes with no hesitation or fumbling. The sound of the show is absolutely fantastic too, the aim for PBS isn’t to be overwhelmingly loud, but clear, present and balanced. ‘Arabian Flight’ is a bit of a slowing down and chill compared to the set being quite upbeat and energetic so far.
With a video to match of a long flight over clouds and deserts with various noise filters, I love this sort of atmosphere building as this is what I adore about post-rock. I keep getting periodically distracted by the fact that the smoke machine appears to be directly behind one of the laptops on stage and has a large fan above it to direct the airflow but it makes the laptop look like it’s on fire.
PBS uses loop pedals masterfully too, with the bass player looping his baseline before jumping off briefly to record a bunch of extra percussion and then getting back to the bass, no passage is too small for a bit of layering. ‘Spitfire’ sees the crowd greet it with screams as if everyone’s been waiting for this the whole set, it’s definitely one of their more energetic songs that also uses sampled dialogue from what appears to be a biopic about its creation.
‘The Other Side’ is another great use of sampled dialogue as it uses the dialogue of mission control from Apollo 8’s passage of the dark side of the moon and this even includes a ‘blackout’ of the venue to match the timing of the signal loss, that’s a really cool touch. But next up is my personal favourite, ‘Go!’, The song that drew me into their fascinating music. The whole audience joins in with shouting ‘GO!’ for the songs ‘chorus’, I fucking love this bands variety.
As we move into the encore, in true PSB style they admit they had a brief moment of peer review off stage about the crowd and gave them a pass. Of course the funky number, ‘Gagarin’ would be in the encore section considering ‘Go!’ was the main set finisher. And finally, to tie off the show is ‘Everest’, and this brings to a close a show that was everything that I wanted a PSB show to be. I really hope I get to see these again at say.. ArcTanGent Festival next year or something, fingers crossed for it.
Public Service Broadcasting are a real class act and fairly unique within the musical space they occupy. I do miss the Sputnik screen though.
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