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Public Service Broadcasting review – Amelia Earhart tribute soars

History-focused band brings live magic to heartfelt songs about the lost aviator and other spirits from a more hopeful age

Corduroy suit, spotted bow-tie, professorial spectacles: J Wilgoose Esq takes to the Barrowland stage dressed as the sort of chap who comes to a sticky end in an MR James ghost story. Although their sound mixes rock and electronica, the band’s exploration of themes places them within a classical tradition: Holst’s The Planets, Britten’s War Requiem – these could, with a little tweaking, be their records, too. Take one moment: Wilgoose locks into a guitar solo as, on the screen behind him, a mail train – bringing the cheque and the postal order – steams past factory chimneys and across sunlit moors in a heart-lifting elegy to a vanished Britain.

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