Big Big Train, The Token Lounge, Westland, Michigan, April 11th, 2025.

A well-weathered 400-capacity club seemingly dropped at random in the middle of Detroit’s western suburbs might not be where you’d expect Big Big Train to wind up for a Friday night gig. Yet, given the path of BBT’s 2025 tour (en route from Chicago to Buffalo) and the Motor City’s long-standing love affair with vintage rock of all types, the Token Lounge made sense as the setting for an evening of 21st-century prog. And, as it turned out, I had what was potentially the loudest seat in the house!

Kudos to engineer extraordinaire Rob Aubrey, though; with everything else onstage running through the PA (no amps!) and judicious use of floor speakers, even the front row heard well-balanced, full-spectrum sound (at least with earplugs in). But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

With no opening band sharing the bill, it was BBT violinist/vocalist/guitarist Clare Lindley’s turn to warm up the crowd. Commanding the stage with confident presence and plenty of snappy platter, Lindley kicked off with original “Voice from the Outside,” then moved into a rootsy, drily humorous set of covers from Steve Earle, Karine Polwart, Michelle Shocked and Levon Helm that soon had us singing – and even clapping – along. Guest turns from trumpeter Paul Mitchell, keyboardist Oskar Holldorff, and multi-instrumentalist Rikard Sjöblom built up the intensity and variety, until Clare & Rikard ripped through a pair of Scottish reels for a enthusiastically received finish.

And then, the moment we’d been waiting for: Big Big Train hit the stage at full strength, diving straight into a generous helping of 2024’s The Likes of Us. Album overture “Light Left in the Day” swelled and ebbed; lead singer Alberto Bravin, Sjöblom and drummer Nick D’Virgilio charged headlong into the odd-time bash “Oblivion”, revving up us Michiganders as only hard-rock riffing can. Then founding father Gregory Spawton left his upstage fortress of bass guitar and pedals for center stage to launch “Behind the Masts”. From the luxuriant 12-string guitar/double keyboard intro through a midsection of diabolic, twisting organ licks to its titanic final resolution, the 17-minute epic held the audience spellbound – until they erupted at the end with the first standing ovation of the night! A lean, surprisingly groovy reworking of “The Last English King” from the recently re-constituted lost album Bard lowered the intensity a bit, but the pitch-perfect a cappella intro to “Miramare” fired up the crowd again, as BBT hit their sweet spot of forgotten history, creamy vocal harmony, virtuoso instrumental counterpoint and unabashed lyrical sentiment.

One side note: Big Big Train has to be the most versatile rock band I’ve ever seen onstage, switching stations and covering every conceivable part with aplomb and precision. Six of the seven sing; five play guitars; a different five play keyboards. But the kicker came when D’Virgilio moved up front for the now-expected acoustic take on Folklore’s “Telling the Bees”. Gaining life and freshness in its role of onstage tribute to the late David Longdon, the song’s bridge captures the once and future heart of the band’s mission:

The joy is in the telling
The sorrow in the soul
Tears of happiness and sadness
Let them flow…

And to cap off the song with a full-band coda featuring Bravin on drums . . . well, that’s just not fair! What else could you do but melt into a puddle as grown men in Cruise to the Edge t-shirts cried around you?

As it turned out, quite a lot; we bopped along with Common Ground’s “Black with Ink”, returned wholeheartedly to The Likes of Us with Spawton’s valedictory “Last Eleven” and Bravin’s unstoppable power ballad “Love Is the Light”, then stayed on our feet as the band whipped through the hairpin turns of closing instrumental “Apollo”. Even with a set shortened from this year’s opening night (as reviewed by Bryan), Big Big Train delivered a high-energy, immensely satisfying evening that gained an extra edge from the Token Lounge’s down to earth, sweaty vibe. As a live band, BBT just keep getting better; their exponentially growing chemistry and precise teamwork enables them to tackle daunting compositional challenges and hit peak moments in the bullseye, with chops and emotion to spare. And to be able to move forward from the welcome set of classics they shared with us in 2024 to focus on their current creative peak? Priceless; as wonderful as last year’s debut US gig was, this outstripped it by miles. (Don’t take my word for it; the high-school friend I dragged along said it was the best show he’d seen in a long time — and this is the guy who re-introduced me to Rush!) With a new album planned for 2026 release and speculation already rampant about next year’s Cruise line-up, could the Train be returning to North American stations sooner than we might think?

— Rick Krueger (front row, left — behind Rikard’s Gibson in the silly buffalo-check shirt, with my friend jumping up directly behind me)

Big Big Train, Sweetwater Performance Theatre, Fort Wayne, Indiana – March 1, 2024

Four years ago this month, Big Big Train’s first North American tour was cancelled, a victim of the worldwide COVID pandemic. Just over 28 months ago, a more ambitious debut tour fell apart before it could even be announced, following the shocking death of BBT singer/songwriter/frontman David Longdon. Finally – finally! – last Friday night, nearly 250 fans (including me, my wife and fellow Progarchist Bryan Morey) packed a state of the art auditorium at the largest music retailer on the planet.

We waited as the announced start time ticked past. And waited some more. Really, how much suspense can BBT’s loyal Passengers – some fortified with sprouts, it’s true, but still – stand?

But all last-minute anxieties fell away as the international septet filed onstage, counted in and exploded into the opener “Folklore”. The audience launched into the singalong chants from the first – “Hey ho, so we go/We pass it on, we hand it down”, indeed – as new frontman Alberto Bravin ramped up into a kinetic dynamo, belting out the melody, prowling the length of the stage, stoking it all to a higher pitch. Meanwhile, the rest of the band dug into the song’s earthy folk-rock rhythm, constantly catching each other’s glances and grinning, as if to say, “can you believe we actually, finally get to do this?”

Rather than focus on their released-that-day effort The Likes of Us, Big Big Train generously gave us Statesiders what we’ve been wanting all these years — a bountiful cross-section of their back catalog from 2009’s game-changing The Underfall Yard through 2021’s Welcome to the Planet. And if the musical balance tipped ever so slightly toward the peak Anglophilia of the English Electric era, with “The First Rebreather” and “Summoned By Bells” as the set’s early landmarks, no one in the crowd seemed to be complaining.

At the back of the stage, keyboardist Oskar Holldorff and bassist/founder Gregory Spawton anchored the music, with Wakemanesque grand piano, sinewy Rickenbacker lines and booming bass pedals laying down track for free passage. To their right, freshly recruited trumpeter Cade Gotthardt covered BBT’s trademark brass parts, sometimes pivoting toward fusion-era Miles Davis fanfares and colors to fresh effect. Up front, Clare Lindley specialized in rippling, quicksilver violin licks; Rikard Sjöblom tackled his own fluid guitar parts plus absent guitarist David Foster’s riffs plus chunky, fiery organ work; and Nick D’Virgilio moved effortlessly from one off-center rhythm to the next, hands and feet awhirl with the rhythmic possibilities. Meanwhile, everyone but Spawton and Gotthardt contributed backing vocals; Bravin, Gotthardt and Lindley added orchestral keyboard pads as needed; and a 12-string guitar purchased at Sweetwater during rehearsals passed between Bravin, D’Virgilio, Lindley, Sjöblom and Spawton as if they’d gathered round a campfire. The cumulative effect kept the audience on the edge of their seats, giddy with the pace and eager for the next inevitable surprise.

Mirroring the onstage swirl of genre, color and texture, the band’s presentation never remained static. D’Virgilio joined Bravin front and center for their vocal duet on Grand Tour’s “The Florentine”, venturing into the audience for a second verse walkabout; on Grimspound’s “A Mead Hall in Winter” (the current tour’s namesake) Spawton stepped forward and gathered the mobile players for an accelerating jam that careened through metallic stops and starts. Out of that whirlwind came the gentlest moment of the night: D’Virgilio and Sjöblom’s tribute to Longdon. Their acoustic take on his “Telling the Bees” was utterly poignant – grief refracted through joy and gratitude, the audience eagerly picking up the chorus, everyone calling to memory the artistic gifts that their absent friend had shared so generously.

Then, the pealing piano chords that herald “East Coast Racer” — and suddenly any opening night jitters fell away from the band, any onstage fluffs no longer mattered. Big Big Train locked in with each other, ramping up the intensity; Bravin roared, purred and declaimed the narrative; the crowd entered the drama inherent in Spawton’s defining epic – more than the story of a train setting a land speed record, a evocation of the sweat and effort of the men behind the breakthrough. And as the audience joined in Bravin’s climactic cry – “And into history/And into legend/She flies” – the night came together in a sublime thrill of tension, release and catharsis.

From that point, an excellent show turned consistently great, as BBT sprinted for the finish line — Longdon’s grim chronicle “A Boy in Darkness”, Bravin’s delicate new ballad “Love Is the Light” and D’Virgilio’s exuberant instrumental “Apollo” chilled the blood, then plucked the heartstrings, then pumped up the adrenaline. Then, after a teasing Bravin invited the crowd to guess the encore, came “Victorian Brickwork” from The Underfall Yard. As Spawton’s doleful tale of familial regret and remorse unwound and the mist of intricate cross-rhythms cleared, Gotthardt launched into that elegiac trumpet coda — and grown men (including me) cried freely and with abandon.

What more is there to say about such an exciting, moving, thoroughly satisfying night? Big Big Train repaid their US audience’s longstanding devotion with interest, and the overwhelming atmosphere of happiness carried over to a relaxed after-show meet and greet. My advice: catch them in Boston (March 5) or Buffalo (March 6) if you can – and hope this mini-tour has sold well enough so that they can mount a return trip before their visas expire!

— Rick Krueger

Setlist:

• Folklore
• The Connection Plan
• The First Rebreather
• The Florentine
• Summoned by Bells
• A Mead Hall in Winter
• Telling the Bees
• East Coast Racer
• A Boy in Darkness
• Love Is the Light
• Apollo
• Victorian Brickwork