Public Service Broadcasting front-man J. Willgoose, Esq has revealed how a concert in Aberdeen is one of the rowdiest the band have ever played.
J says the gig at the Music Hall in the Granite City on November 6, 2021 “got a little too much” at some points to the extent he had to ask the crowd to calm down.
Public Service Broadcasting founding member J reckons the gig was so wild because it was so soon after the Covid lockdown when music venues were closed.
And all that pent-up energy and frustration was let out by fans.
Now the band will return to the Music Hall on Thursday, October 17 to promote new album The Last Flight.
J said: “Weirdly The Music Hall in Aberdeen in 2021 is one of the rowdiest shows we have ever played.
“I don’t know if people were working out some kind of delayed Covid release or something.
“It was a Saturday night, late 2021 so people had a lot of pent-up energy going on.
“It got a little bit too much at a couple of points.
“And it was one of the few times I have had to say ‘now, now everyone’.
“Which doesn’t really happen at our shows.”
‘Amelia had bravery and vision’
Formed in 2009 retro-futurist rockers Public Service Broadcasting have released five studio albums, with the previous three charting in the top five.
Released on October 4, new album The Last Flight explores the final voyage of America’s pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart.
Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, setting multiple speed and distance records.
In 1937 Earhart set off to circumnavigate the globe in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft.
She successfully crossed the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Earhart left Papua New Guinea on July 2 to fly 2,600 miles to the tiny coral atoll of Howland Island in the Central Pacific but never made it.
J said: “I wanted to do a real female focused story.
“It has been a source of frustration for a long-time that most of the archives we have access to are overwhelmingly male dominated.
“Amelia had bravery and vision.
“Working on The Race For Space (2015 album) a lot of astronauts on those missions were from a military background and very procedural.
“Only one or two came back with a philosophical or poetical change of heart.
“However Amelia is not really cut from the same cloth.
“She had the same attributes of being outrageously courageous and technically astute.
“However she was a philosopher and poetic in nature.
“It was really interesting trying to translate that character on to the record.”
Working with the BBC Symphony Orchestra
The Last Flight is the latest artistic high in a career that has racked up acclaimed hit releases and collaborations.
In 2022 public Service Broadcasting performed live with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The event was to celebrate 100 years of BBC Radio and was subsequently released as The New Noise album.
J said: “It was amazing to be given that opportunity by the Proms team and to write a whole new piece.
“And at such a notable location and on the centenary of the BBC.
“To work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jules Buckley (conductor) was something else.
“It wasn’t even on my list of things I would like to do one day in music because it seemed so unlikely.
“My list extended to playing Brixton Academy and even that felt like a lofty dream that would never be fulfilled.
“I’m proud of how we responded to the challenge.
“And certainly with the statement we made at the end of that piece with the orchestra leaving the stage.
“We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get the BBC to agree to that but I think it was a powerful way to end it.
“To remind people of what they would lose if the BBC wasn’t there anymore.”
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