Music
Public Service Broadcasting, O2 ABC, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
Four stars
Public Service Broadcasting are an amusing bunch as well as a creative one. Any focus on the duo (a foursome live) rightly concentrates on their smart amalgamation of vintage samples and footage with noisy instrumentation, but there is a playful side to all the cleverness too.
That was apparent from the start of this performance, with a short instructional video displaying how to correctly operate a mobile phone at a gig, advice thankfully heeded. It carried through guitarist J Willgoose Esq's vocal announcements being made electronically, and into an encore that saw the joyously brass-powered Gagarin feature a man in an astronaut outfit larking about.
If the onstage antics suggest both eccentricity and tongue-in-check humour, then the music itself had sheer power, with drummer Wrigglesworth impressive throughout. Material from both albums dovetailed nicely, but the creative expansion on the recent The Race For Space record was noticeable, right from the opening Sputnik, a vast, cinematic number. Support act Smoke Fairies dropped by for some haunting vocals on Valentina, Go! was gloriously high-spirited pop and The Other Side's synths conjured up an eerie sense of the unknown.
The thematic focus evoked an atmospheric sense of the past yet the music was forward-thinking in ambition, although the sheer noise sometimes submerged the vocal samples. The force of the tunes was usually enough, though, with a terrific closing, towering version of Everest, after the post-rock sharpness of Spitfire and the relentless rhythm of Night Mail confirmed them as a band catering for mental stimulation and fist-pumping glee alike.
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