Big Big Train - A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line: The Story of the Big Big Train 'The Journey Continues' Tour 2023 (Book by Andy Stuart)
Kingmaker Publishing, run by Big Big Train founder Gregory Spawton and manager Nick Shilton, is delighted to announce the publication of its latest book. A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line – The Story of the Big Big Train ‘The Journey Continues Tour’ 2023 by Andy Stuart was published on 5 July 2024.
A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line tells the behind-the-scenes story of Big Big Train’s first ever European tour: 17 shows in nine countries across 23 days and covering around 6,500 miles. The Journey Continues 2023 tour also represented the band’s first significant sequence of performances with former PFM vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Alberto Bravin, as lead singer following the untimely death of David Longdon in late 2021.
As the band took to the road to perform for new audiences across Europe, it was an untested and, in many ways, unknown quantity. With a different line-up and a new album in the wings, and with high profile gigs on Cruise To The Edge 2024 lying in wait, the stakes were high. Could Big Big Train deliver and prove that the band did have a promising future after the tragedy and disruption that had befallen them since 2019’s half dozen UK shows promoting their Grand Tour album?
A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line combines the diary of writer Andy Stuart with insights from extensive post-tour interviews conducted with all the members of Big Big Train, to provide views from the embankment and line respectively. Stuart attended all 17 shows of The Journey Continues 2023 and offers a uniquely personal perspective on the tour, by turns humorous, philosophical and moving. The text is lavishly illustrated with over 200 live performance and intimate backstage photographs shot by Anne-Marie Forker, Michael Heller and Antonio De Sarno, as well as candid photos taken by the band members themselves.
Gregory Spawton comments: “The Journey Continues 2023 tour was a very significant undertaking for Big Big Train on multiple levels. We were aware of the warmth in people’s hearts towards us, but after everything that had happened in our recent history, even we were unsure if carrying on was the right thing to do and how audiences would react. The stakes were high, and it was only as the tour unfolded that I began to feel that we could move forward, with our heads held high and with our hearts in place that this was the right thing to do. Because he attended all 17 shows, Andy Stuart witnessed that process almost in real time and I am thrilled that he was able to bring it to life so vividly.”
Andy Stuart comments: “A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line is a documentary story woven from strands of coincidence, both tragic and wonderful. The untimely passing of David Longdon and the privations of the pandemic made a huge emotional impact upon me. Following Big Big Train across an entire tour was both a way of making up for lost time in my own life, as well as paying tribute to an artist whose music had inspired me very deeply. I didn’t originally set out to write a book about my adventures, but from conversations with Gregory Spawton and Nick Shilton, it seemed as if there was a story to tell, one that would captivate Big Big Train fans and progressive rock fans in general.”
Andy Stuart is a writer with a particular focus on progressive music and children’s fiction. His first novel The Metro Mice was published in 2022 and his next project for Kingmaker Publishing will be a detailed exploration of progressive rock during the 1990s.
A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line is published as a ca. 230-page, coffee-table-style hardback book, with over 200 photographs.
Format: Book
Artist: Big Big Train, Kingmaker Publishing, Andy Stuart
Release Date: July 5, 2024