To celebrate and promote the forthcoming The Journey Continues tour this August and September, Big Big Train will be sharing videos of a couple of songs filmed on tour last year.

The first of the videos is "The Florentine", which was recorded in September 2022 at The Boerderij in The Netherlands.

Alberto Bravin says: “I was very pleased when we agreed last year that 'The Florentine' should be on the set list for our shows last September. After all, what could be better for an Italian than singing about Leonardo da Vinci?! 'The Florentine' is a wonderful song to sing and a perfect example of David Longdon’s songwriting genius. We’re very fortunate to have the song as part of the Big Big Train catalogue.

“Duetting at the start and end of 'The Florentine' with Nick D’Virgilio coming out from behind the drum kit, was fun. It has some great opportunities for ensemble playing as well as some showcasing some terrific solos – I really enjoyed being on stage watching Oskar Holldorff playing that keyboard solo and Rikard rocking out on the guitar solo every night. For the gig at the Boerderij we thought it would be interesting to have a camera on Rikard’s guitar too. I hope we will be playing 'The Florentine' live many more times in the future.”

Nick D’Virgilio adds: “I loved singing with Alberto. Seeing the live film of us playing 'The Florentine' at the legendary Boerderij venue in the Netherlands is so cool. It still amazes me that this was only our third show playing together with Alberto, Oskar, Clare Lindley and Dave Foster. Our performance may not be 100% perfect but we really rocked and it was very memorable – particularly for a Monday night!

“Our Boerderij show was also the first time that we had played a standing venue since our Night Of The Prog gig back in 2018. The night had a different vibe to the shows we’ve done in seated theatres on previous tours and I’m really looking forward to us playing a mix of venues when we’re back out on the road in August and September this year.”

You can see a short, recent message from Gregory Spawton about the tour and the next BBT studio album, as well as a message from Alberto Bravin, below:

(Photo - Michael Heller)