Big Big Train v. "The Likes Of Us" OUT NOW; European Tour Sept/Oct 2024!

[HOF]

Big Big Train sign to InsideOut

We are delighted to announce that we have signed a deal with InsideOut. InsideOut is the premier progressive rock label and part of the Sony Music group. For the full story, please visit https://www.progradar.org

For Passengers Club members and patrons, the next Business End blog written by BBT manager Nick Shilton provides a detailed insight into the InsideOut deal. The blog will be available within the Club this Friday 4th August. Visit www.thepassengersclub.com

The Journey Continues Tour 2023

It’s 24 days until show time!

Following the warm-up show on Thursday 24th August (now fully sold out), Big Big Train will be trekking – together with our excellent support band Dim Gray (featuring a certain Oskar Holldorff) - through the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland for 16 further shows. (15 shows for Dim Gray, as the second night’s show in London at Cadogan Hall on Wednesday 13th September is BBT only and will feature an extended set list.)

We are aiming to vary the set list to some extent every night of the tour, so to maximise your chances of hearing your favourite BBT songs, please think about coming to more than one show if you can. We plan to play two songs from Ingenious Devices on the tour but they won’t necessarily both be played every night!

The Bandwagon USA Big Big Sale

The Bandwagon USA will be running an extensive half price Big Big Sale from tomorrow until 15th August here: https://thebandwagonusa.com/en-gb/collections/big-big-train. The Bandwagon USA are also offering a number of other English Electric Recordings items for half price.   

 

Not long now until we see you on the road. Thanks for your continuing support.

Best wishes

Big Big Train

Today's newsletter update!

And here's a new music teaser- https://youtu.be/zp2bEqjT_SM

-Marc.

Huh, thought I responded to this earlier this morning. Inside Out always seemed like probably the best fit, so no big surprise there. That new sample sounds amazing. Hope we get a title and release date soon.

[The Letter M]

No surprise there. Here's to hoping that maybe Inside Out assists with the reissues.

In parallel with this deal with InsideOut, Big Big Train will continue to run their English Electric Recordings label and expect to commence a re-issue campaign for previous studio BBT albums in late 2024.

I'm thinking that the re-issue campaign will be released by EER, but all future releases will go through InsideOut, for which their deal is a multi-album deal, which sounds like several studio and live albums in the years to come. It's a good way to give this current band its own identity going forth, especially being on a big label! Maybe IO/Sony will help distribute the re-issues, but I can see the band keeping much of the work on them in-house before it's sent off for production.

Huh, thought I responded to this earlier this morning. Inside Out always seemed like probably the best fit, so no big surprise there. That new sample sounds amazing. Hope we get a title and release date soon.

They've said the album will come out in Spring 2024, so if we get a six-month head-start on the pre-orders, then I'd say October at the VERY earliest, for a March release, just in time for Cruise To The Edge.

-Marc.

[ProfessorPeart]

Late 2024, yuck. Oh well, something to look forward to, I guess (outside of the new album).

[The Letter M]

Late 2024, yuck. Oh well, something to look forward to, I guess (outside of the new album).

True. I suspect the new album will come out in March/April, with another small tour in the mid-to-late summer (as 2022 and 2023 have shown), and then a re-issue campaign starting in Nov/Dec with their first three studio albums, including the long-awaited Bard remix/remaster/reissue. Then they'll probably get to Gathering Speed and The Difference Machine next as a pair, and continue on with English Electric Full Power afterwards. I'm not sure they'd do The Underfall Yard again so soon after the previous reissue, but they might do Far Skies Deep Time, which had it's last release in 2017.

After that, I'd assume the group of Folklore/Grimspound/The Second Brightest Star would all come out together, but that probably won't be til like 2025 if they want to space these all out. That's probably where these reissues would end, as I think Grand Tour is still readily available, as are the last two with Longdon, but if they're doing something with all of their albums that makes them special as a group, maybe they'll do them all up to Welcome To The World. One thing I think would be neat would be a unique spine-mural so that the CDs all look nice on a shelf together. But also, I wonder if they'll bother to include any sort of bonuses, like demos (sourced from The Passengers Club), or live tracks from past shows. There are few bands I'll triple-dip for, but BBT is one of them!

-Marc.

[HOF]

Late 2024, yuck. Oh well, something to look forward to, I guess (outside of the new album).

True. I suspect the new album will come out in March/April, with another small tour in the mid-to-late summer (as 2022 and 2023 have shown), and then a re-issue campaign starting in Nov/Dec with their first three studio albums, including the long-awaited Bard remix/remaster/reissue. Then they'll probably get to Gathering Speed and The Difference Machine next as a pair, and continue on with English Electric Full Power afterwards. I'm not sure they'd do The Underfall Yard again so soon after the previous reissue, but they might do Far Skies Deep Time, which had it's last release in 2017.

After that, I'd assume the group of Folklore/Grimspound/The Second Brightest Star would all come out together, but that probably won't be til like 2025 if they want to space these all out. That's probably where these reissues would end, as I think Grand Tour is still readily available, as are the last two with Longdon, but if they're doing something with all of their albums that makes them special as a group, maybe they'll do them all up to Welcome To The World. One thing I think would be neat would be a unique spine-mural so that the CDs all look nice on a shelf together. But also, I wonder if they'll bother to include any sort of bonuses, like demos (sourced from The Passengers Club), or live tracks from past shows. There are few bands I'll triple-dip for, but BBT is one of them!

-Marc.

I also wonder how much of the pre-Longdon material was ever re-recorded for the long rumored "Station Masters" idea, and if some of that could find it's way into these re-issues as bonus tracks to add value.

[The Letter M]

Late 2024, yuck. Oh well, something to look forward to, I guess (outside of the new album).

True. I suspect the new album will come out in March/April, with another small tour in the mid-to-late summer (as 2022 and 2023 have shown), and then a re-issue campaign starting in Nov/Dec with their first three studio albums, including the long-awaited Bard remix/remaster/reissue. Then they'll probably get to Gathering Speed and The Difference Machine next as a pair, and continue on with English Electric Full Power afterwards. I'm not sure they'd do The Underfall Yard again so soon after the previous reissue, but they might do Far Skies Deep Time, which had it's last release in 2017.

After that, I'd assume the group of Folklore/Grimspound/The Second Brightest Star would all come out together, but that probably won't be til like 2025 if they want to space these all out. That's probably where these reissues would end, as I think Grand Tour is still readily available, as are the last two with Longdon, but if they're doing something with all of their albums that makes them special as a group, maybe they'll do them all up to Welcome To The World. One thing I think would be neat would be a unique spine-mural so that the CDs all look nice on a shelf together. But also, I wonder if they'll bother to include any sort of bonuses, like demos (sourced from The Passengers Club), or live tracks from past shows. There are few bands I'll triple-dip for, but BBT is one of them!

-Marc.

I also wonder how much of the pre-Longdon material was ever re-recorded for the long rumored "Station Masters" idea, and if some of that could find it's way into these re-issues as bonus tracks to add value.

That's a good question. I hope we find out some day. Those would make for very enticing bonus tracks on the reissues and definitely make them worth buying again, at least to me, even if nothing else is done to the original album music save for a bit of remastering.

-Marc.

[HOF]

And obviously they could still do some re-worked versions with the current lineup if they were so inclined (like they did with Expecting Dragons on the last reissue of Goodbye to the Age of Steam).

[Kram]

I’m only half way through this interview, but Greg let out that the band are signing with a record company and that news of that will be out soon. That is a pretty major shift for this band.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5yyDK4woow

Hopefully it is someone like InsideOut who understands prog and who BBT are, but it also kind of sounds like he expects a certain measure of record company input going forward. Interesting.

I'm watching this interview now. Interesting that he says the two albums they recorded during the pandemic (Common Ground and Welcome to the Planet) were not "the best set of releases that they've made" - and that there was probably one good album's worth of material that they could've made, but they end up recording two albums just to make use of the time they had on their hands.

If you watch this video until the end, Greg mentions they hope to announce some US dates in a couple weeks!!  I'm guessing next year after the cruise, which should be right aroud the release of the new album!

[Harmony]

I'm late to the party but I've been really enjoying Ingenious Devices.  I love the orchestration and the much improved rhythm section on Brooklands.  Brooklands has always been a favorite of mine and I didn't realize until recently they've never performed it live.  What a shame! 

The end of that song never fails to bring a tear to my eye.  How I wish David could've had a chance to add some new vocals to the mix but even so, I'm all in.  I was listening to it over the weekend and my husband says, "Oh you listening to Genesis?"  I set him straight and of course he's seen some of BBT's live performances on YouTube with me but it just goes to show how much Longdon's voice evokes Phil (and IMO Peter) at times.  All good.

[HOF]

I'm late to the party but I've been really enjoying Ingenious Devices.  I love the orchestration and the much improved rhythm section on Brooklands.  Brooklands has always been a favorite of mine and I didn't realize until recently they've never performed it live.  What a shame! 

The end of that song never fails to bring a tear to my eye.  How I wish David could've had a chance to add some new vocals to the mix but even so, I'm all in.  I was listening to it over the weekend and my husband says, "Oh you listening to Genesis?"  I set him straight and of course he's seen some of BBT's live performances on YouTube with me but it just goes to show how much Longdon's voice evokes Phil (and IMO Peter) at times.  All good.

It’s interesting because when he was younger had a little more Collins in him, but from about Grimspound on he realized his voice was settling lower and he made more of an effort to sing in a lower register which really evokes Gabriel.

[HOF]

So in the Passenger’s Club today Nick Shilton shared some more details about the Inside Out deal. He confirmed it is a licensing deal for new material only, meaning BBT will retain the rights and control over the masters and Inside Out won’t have any input into the creative side of things. Also all of the back catalog will stay with English Electric which will be handling the reissues, so it appears those won’t be on Inside Out. Essentially Inside Out just has a much bigger reach than the band does on its own, and this will take a lot of extra administrative stuff off the band’s plate.

[axeman90210]

I've continued on my summer long BBT deep dive with The Grand Tour and Empire. The Grand Tour was definitely a step up from its studio album predecessor, I'd put it in the same tier with Folklore and Grimspound just below Underfall Yard and English Electric. Empire is good, the band always sounds on point, the setlist is just easily my least favorite of any of the live albums I've checked out so far. This week will be Common Ground, then Summer Shall Not Fade and Welcome to the Planet to round things out.

[The Letter M]

I've continued on my summer long BBT deep dive with The Grand Tour and Empire. The Grand Tour was definitely a step up from its studio album predecessor, I'd put it in the same tier with Folklore and Grimspound just below Underfall Yard and English Electric. Empire is good, the band always sounds on point, the setlist is just easily my least favorite of any of the live albums I've checked out so far. This week will be Common Ground, then Summer Shall Not Fade and Welcome to the Planet to round things out.

If you want to be very chronological, I'd say do Summer Shall Not Fade before the last two studio albums, as that show was even before Grand Tour came out, but that's up to you. The line-up is the same as the Grand Tour/Empire one, IIRC.

As for Grand Tour, I found myself really loving it when it came out, though I haven't listened to BBT enough lately to know if my feelings have changed on it. I think it's still pretty good, high up there for me, but then again, I tend to praise almost every BBT release.

I'm not sure if you mentioned it or not, but if you can, get a hold of Summer's Lease, the Japanese-released compilation that includes some unique tracks and versions of BBT songs, as well as the definitive version of the "London Song" suite which includes some additions by Greg that aren't on the bandcamp release of the 30-minute suite.

-Marc.

[HOF]

Grand Tour has held up and even grown on me a little bit over time I think. I still don’t care too much for Ariel, but the rest is really good.

Empire is still their crowning live moment in my book. As great as the Summer Shall Not Fade environment was, I think they were really on at the end of that tour for Empire and the recording and film are excellent.

[Pebsie]

Empire is still their crowning live moment in my book. As great as the Summer Shall Not Fade environment was, I think they were really on at the end of that tour for Empire and the recording and film are excellent.

Gotta be honest, I walked out of that show disappointed. Including encore it was only 99 minutes of music which is crazy for a prog show (especially when the year before we had 136 minutes of music split into two sets). I just didn't feel that it ever "got started" and it felt so much less like an event. For a band that barely plays live it was disappointing that the setlist repeated so much from the Cadogan shows (if we're talking minute by minute 46% of the show was the same as Cadogan). I would've taken Roman Stone or The Underfall Yard over ECR.

I also felt as if the band wasn't quite gelling as they had before: on the night it felt that there were some tensions within the band and at certain points in the bluray I feel that the band members look frustrated or a bit bored, like they're waiting to get it over and done with. Given that so many members left shortly after (with reasons related to not wanting to tour) it puts a bit of shade over the performance for me and isn't one I regularly return to.

However credit where credit is due: the performances themselves are top notch and each player is really at the top of their game. This was their first ever proper tour and so I can understand treading comfortable ground and doing a smaller set VS being a bit more ambitious. As a document of their final night together as that era of BBT it certainly holds up well! Longdon's best captured live performance with BBT by a long shot and beautifully mixed.

My band has been working with Robin Armstrong recently who stood in on keyboards for this tour and there's just so much that goes into these shows behind the scenes that we never really get to know about on this side. Huge amounts of monetary risk and huge amounts of organisation, travel and rehearsal. To look at it as I do now knowing some of what went into bringing that tour together feels a bit mean but I know how I felt on the night. Such is this business I suppose!! "Everything is never enough..."

[HOF]

That’s interesting to get a different perspective from someone who was there. I don’t know how much tension there was at that point in the band, but I’d never heard of their being any and I don’t think any was mentioned in the Between the Lines book. But I do think the idea of more frequent touring paired with COVID did lead to Gregory and Manners departing, maybe Rachel as well. Could be that they got to the end of that tour and were already thinking about it being the end.

[The Letter M]

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/big-big-train/2023/court-theatre-tring-england-5ba52300.html?fbclid=IwAR24eQOkG-Wy3xC7pipo8ybg8pGl4fQqQrKecf1AHJBauUBdaQdWbp3xEw4

Setlist foe the warm-up show in Tring. Spoilers, obviously!

-Marc.

[DTA]

Great setlist. I appreciate them doing some previously unplayed ones.

[RoeDent]

I'm genuinely surprised at all of the previously-unplayed songs, that it is the first time for them.

[Pebsie]

Spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers
Awesome to see Folklore again, had assumed that would be gone for good. Connection Plan, Apollo and Drums and Brass I could definitely leave. The first 2 are fun and Drums and Brass was fun the first few times but I'm a bit EH from it now.

Hedgerow and Judas are a staple. Great great great to see Summoned by Bells (my favorite BBT track), Swan Hunter and Victorian Brickwork again.

Also cool to see them playing stuff they've never played before, including the mighty Brooklands.

No Spoilers No Spoilers No Spoilers
Just to mirror something I put on the BBT Facebook group, probably more relevant here.

I've been outspoken in my dislike for set list spoilers in the past, but last year had the opportunity for an experiment.
Dream Theater played 2 tours supporting the same album with only minor changes in the setlist from tour to tour. Ironically DT used to be a band known for playing a different show every night and now they're known for playing to an extremely rigid structure with click tracks, backing tracks and huge production quality videos. So if you see the setlist you know for absolute certainty that that's the exact show they'll play. Even potential improvisational spots are structured. There's 0 spontaneity.

Having seen the tour already I thought "screw it, let's spoil the setlist and see if I enjoy it more or less." Unfortunately for me they cut some of my favourite tracks from the first tour and added songs I could definitely leave out. This also allowed me to engage in the discussion around the tour and watch videos of other performances and so on rather than having to shut myself off from it all.

And in fact the songs I would've been dissapointed with had I not known they'd be played are the ones I enjoyed the most!! In fact I enjoyed the whole show a lot more because I knew what to expect, I wasn't stressed about whispers on the encore and I'd been able to hype myself up for it.

There's nothing BBT could do to dissapoint me on this tour, even playing Leopards on a loop for 4 hours would be incredible. We know that some songs will be getting changed around night to night. So I'm saying screw it!! I want all the setlist spoilers. I want to engage in discussion and speculate on everything without getting myself stressed. If there are surprises at the Cadogan Hall shows then awesome, if not then I'll still love it!

If you were previously like me then I'd definitely suggest reconsidering your position! It makes it all so much easier and more enjoyable.

tl;dr I used to stress out hugely over setlist spoilers, but I'm choosing not to this time... and maybe you should do the same? 😃

I'll be heading to both Cadogan Hall shows. Anyone from DTF also going? (and anyone happen to have a couple of spare tickets to Tiger Moth Tales' matinee?)

[axeman90210]

I have to vehemently disagree, Leopards on a loop for 4 hours would be far from incredible

[HOF]

Spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers
Awesome to see Folklore again, had assumed that would be gone for good. Connection Plan, Apollo and Drums and Brass I could definitely leave. The first 2 are fun and Drums and Brass was fun the first few times but I'm a bit EH from it now.

Hedgerow and Judas are a staple. Great great great to see Summoned by Bells (my favorite BBT track), Swan Hunter and Victorian Brickwork again.

Also cool to see them playing stuff they've never played before, including the mighty Brooklands.

No Spoilers No Spoilers No Spoilers
Just to mirror something I put on the BBT Facebook group, probably more relevant here.

I've been outspoken in my dislike for set list spoilers in the past, but last year had the opportunity for an experiment.
Dream Theater played 2 tours supporting the same album with only minor changes in the setlist from tour to tour. Ironically DT used to be a band known for playing a different show every night and now they're known for playing to an extremely rigid structure with click tracks, backing tracks and huge production quality videos. So if you see the setlist you know for absolute certainty that that's the exact show they'll play. Even potential improvisational spots are structured. There's 0 spontaneity.

Having seen the tour already I thought "screw it, let's spoil the setlist and see if I enjoy it more or less." Unfortunately for me they cut some of my favourite tracks from the first tour and added songs I could definitely leave out. This also allowed me to engage in the discussion around the tour and watch videos of other performances and so on rather than having to shut myself off from it all.

And in fact the songs I would've been dissapointed with had I not known they'd be played are the ones I enjoyed the most!! In fact I enjoyed the whole show a lot more because I knew what to expect, I wasn't stressed about whispers on the encore and I'd been able to hype myself up for it.

There's nothing BBT could do to dissapoint me on this tour, even playing Leopards on a loop for 4 hours would be incredible. We know that some songs will be getting changed around night to night. So I'm saying screw it!! I want all the setlist spoilers. I want to engage in discussion and speculate on everything without getting myself stressed. If there are surprises at the Cadogan Hall shows then awesome, if not then I'll still love it!

If you were previously like me then I'd definitely suggest reconsidering your position! It makes it all so much easier and more enjoyable.

tl;dr I used to stress out hugely over setlist spoilers, but I'm choosing not to this time... and maybe you should do the same? 😃

I'll be heading to both Cadogan Hall shows. Anyone from DTF also going? (and anyone happen to have a couple of spare tickets to Tiger Moth Tales' matinee?)

I don't got to enough concerts to have ever considered what the set list would be. I don't think it would be bother me to know ahead of time, and it might actually be helpful to know what to expect. I guess if anything, I'd probably like to know the set list before I bought my tickets!

[The Letter M]

Big Big Train will be filming some special content, this Wednesday, for the release of their next studio album (coming Spring 2024), and they want to know what your burning questions are.
 
If you could ask the band anything about the new album, what would it be?

Submit your question by Tuesday, the 12th, at the following link, and a selection will be answered by the band.
https://forms.sonymusicfans.com/campaign/big-big-train-question-collection/

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0RYfQw2KLkyWjx8rNezZ7YBaySdg5r5mWQp2jDNPY5BseC9auJ3fcGGGqawdvtUATl&id=100063888256380&mibextid=Nif5oz

Very interesting! I wonder if they'll also be filming any music videos for singles off their next album while they're all together?

-Marc.

[HOF]

I’m not sure if we’ve gotten anything as specific as “Spring 2024” before for the new album. Though maybe we got “early 2024” mentioned. I’m guessing maybe this rules out January and February at least and we’re probably looking at March (which happens to be 6 months from now).

[The Letter M]

I’m not sure if we’ve gotten anything as specific as “Spring 2024” before for the new album. Though maybe we got “early 2024” mentioned. I’m guessing maybe this rules out January and February at least and we’re probably looking at March (which happens to be 6 months from now).

I would suspect March or April, with the possibility of tour dates as early as May. I recall reading on FB from someone that said Greg was looking to do some US shows next year, and I would assume with Inside Out backing them, they might aim for a few US shows in the summer in support of their next album. If they make a mid-Atlantic show, I'll do my damnedest to try and see them.

-Marc.

[axeman90210]

I’m not sure if we’ve gotten anything as specific as “Spring 2024” before for the new album. Though maybe we got “early 2024” mentioned. I’m guessing maybe this rules out January and February at least and we’re probably looking at March (which happens to be 6 months from now).

I would suspect March or April, with the possibility of tour dates as early as May. I recall reading on FB from someone that said Greg was looking to do some US shows next year, and I would assume with Inside Out backing them, they might aim for a few US shows in the summer in support of their next album. If they make a mid-Atlantic show, I'll do my damnedest to try and see them.

-Marc.

I would assume a US tour would be either right before or right after Cruise to the Edge since they all have to get themselves and their gear to FL for the cruise already.

[HOF]

I’m not sure if we’ve gotten anything as specific as “Spring 2024” before for the new album. Though maybe we got “early 2024” mentioned. I’m guessing maybe this rules out January and February at least and we’re probably looking at March (which happens to be 6 months from now).

I would suspect March or April, with the possibility of tour dates as early as May. I recall reading on FB from someone that said Greg was looking to do some US shows next year, and I would assume with Inside Out backing them, they might aim for a few US shows in the summer in support of their next album. If they make a mid-Atlantic show, I'll do my damnedest to try and see them.

-Marc.

Cruise to the Edge is in early March (8th-13th) so I imagine they’ll want the release to coincide with that somewhat, either just before or soon after. That’s also probably when they will do some US dates as well.

Or what Axeman said!

[ich bin besser]

I'll be heading to both Cadogan Hall shows. Anyone from DTF also going? (and anyone happen to have a couple of spare tickets to Tiger Moth Tales' matinee?)

Oh, have fun! I saw them last weekend in Stuttgart/Germany and it was a fantastic gig. What a band they are now! 

[HOF]

I'll be heading to both Cadogan Hall shows. Anyone from DTF also going? (and anyone happen to have a couple of spare tickets to Tiger Moth Tales' matinee?)

Oh, have fun! I saw them last weekend in Stuttgart/Germany and it was a fantastic gig. What a band they are now! 

The pictures from the tour that are making their way to Facebook have looked amazing. I’m sure the gigs sound amazing too (though it sounds like there have been some technical and acoustic issues at some of the venues. Hopefully experience has taught them how to avoid the infamous issues they had at Cadogan last time).

[Zydar]

"After a wonderful evening here yesterday, we’re at Cadogan Hall in central London again tonight for the final show of The Journey Continues tour.
 
We respectfully request that there is strictly no filming at this show as we are professionally filming our London shows this week for future Blu-Ray release".

So it's confirmed there will be a blu-ray coming.

[ProfessorPeart]

Here's hoping there is some bonus content in the way of the stuff they put out on YouTube from the earlier shows.

[The Letter M]

I think they'll include songs from both Cadogan shows for a live album release as the band has said there'd be a lot of surprises between both shows, including songs not played earlier in the tour.

-Marc.

[HOF]

Really nice review of the Birmingham concert with some great photos.

https://atthebarrier.com/2023/09/13/big-big-train-dim-gray-town-hall-birmingham-live-review/

[The Curious Orange]

There was a suicide on the train line, the train in front of mine, actually, so all the trains into London ground to a halt and I missed the Cadogan Hall show. I'm absolutely gutted.

[HOF]

There was a suicide on the train line, the train in front of mine, actually, so all the trains into London ground to a halt and I missed the Cadogan Hall show. I'm absolutely gutted.

Oh no, that’s awful.