Big Big Train TONIGHT (NOW WITH FULL REPORT)

I am back home now, so time for a full account.
 
My seats were not among the very last to be sold for no reason. We were in the side gallery level with the stage and the gallery obscured the extreme right of the stage meaning Dave Gregory and Greg Spawton were mostly hidden. If you ever go to the Cardogan Hall, avoid the side galleries. The other issue initially was the sound, we were behind the PA stacks and the stacks were underneath the gallery, the snare dominated everything else. I went further towards the back and the sound was better, but not good. The band were even heckled at one stage. The sound was fixed in the interval when extra speakers were suspended from the roof.
 
That out of the way, the band were excellent, first set Highlights for me were London Plane, Mead-hall in Winter and Swan Hunter but it was Brave Captain seem to suffer the most from the sound problems. The second set contained the big ones including East Coast Racer, Transit of Venus, Judas Unrepentant, Victorian Brickwork and Last Train. Every song was met with a standing ovation, and not just the songs, after a couple of solos the band had to pause to let the applause die down.
 
Rikard Sjöblom seem to have quite a fans in with several (mostly female) shouts of RIKARD! coming from the audience. He certainly played some pretty nifty guitar and organ. Rachel Hall is certainly a key member now, her violin and backing vocals were central to most songs. Dave Longdon is as extrovert as Greg Spawton is retiring. Greg's Rickenbaker however rung out from the shadows at the back of the stage and when he used the bass pedals I could feel the structure of the building shaking!
 
Dave Gregory remained mostly invisible even when I moved back, but the guitar interplay between him and Rick was excellent.
 
The brass section was a treat, and for the encore Nick D'Virgilio came on first with some tasteful drumming and introduced the brass players who played sequence over Nick's drums before the rest of the band returned for Wassail.
 
All in all despite the initial problems it was a very enjoyable night, I am sure the people in the stalls had a fantastic first set too and the Saturday and Sunday concerts would not have suffered from the gallery sound issues.