In the deafness of my world

the silence broke

My final leg of the To the Bone tour started with the last of a two-week run of French shows (apparently the album had done exceptionally well there, but the amount of dates did seem a little excessive!), and I didn’t find out until we were queuing that this one had come pretty close to being canceled last minute: There was actually supposed to be a support act (Paul Draper, formerly of Mansun), but he didn’t make it due to snow flurries, and while the band got to Nancy, their equipment almost didn’t. Because of this, it was a pretty late show; doors opened at 7PM, but we weren’t allowed into the actual concert hall for another hour, since they were behind with the soundcheck. The venue did blast a really fantastic prog mix CD over the PA though, which included Opeth, Riverside, Haken, Leprous, King Crimson, as well as Porcupine Tree and Steven himself! We easily made it to the front and center once we were allowed in, since many of the locals seemed to prefer going for the back of the venue, which had some raised general admission seating.

The band hit the stage at 9PM, opening with the usual Nowhere Now and Pariah duet. It was clear from the very beginning that the audience was a more subdued one, despite it being a standing gig, and before launching into Home Invasion / Regret #9 he tried to engage with a pretty long attempt at conversation, which fell flat because the audience was virtually non-responsive. This was only my second French show (the other having been a seated gig in Paris), but the experiences were similar, so perhaps it’s a cultural thing? He thanked the crew for putting the show together in record time since their instruments had only gotten there an hour and a half before they got on stage, then asked whether he’d ever played in Nancy before since he couldn’t remember (he hadn’t), and he thanked everyone for coming, saying that he always expects no one to show up whenever he plays a place for the first time, and is always delighted to find out that there’s people who’ve been waiting to see him play for however long.

He then added that he’d like photography to be kept to a minimum out of respect to the people standing behind whoever is taking pictures, and that he’d recently gone through much work, time, and expense to release a professional recording of the show that would surely be much better than anything our phones could capture. I followed his gaze and noticed that he was definitely referring to a select few people in the front row, unfortunately standing close to me, who didn’t bother to take a few snaps here and there unobtrusively (as I like to think I do—Craig wasn’t looking daggers at me, anyway!). One guy had brought a compact camera that he held up constantly, while a teenage girl a few people over (I’d already noticed her because she’d cut the line at every available opportunity) was on her phone the entire time; not even taking pictures or filming—she was on WhatsApp or checking her Instagram feed, it was weird as hell. She was right between Steven and Alex, and the whole band definitely noticed and did not like it one bit, with Steven and Craig especially exchanging dark looks and shaking their heads with a grim expression on their face. It escalated as the show progressed, and reached a point where Steven talked to his stage manager/guitar tech, who then had the pit security walk up to these people to tell them to cut it out. The band was clearly very put off by the whole thing, and even though I hadn’t been glared at, I didn’t want to be lumped in with that sort of audience member, so I took a few pictures during Regret #9 and the biting, ever unsettling Creator, and then put the phone away.

Refuge followed; I remember being incredibly impressed by his vocal performance on this particular song at my first show on the first leg, but a year on the road took his toll, and 126 shows in, he couldn’t sustain the long note on “time“, and his voice broke on it. It was noticeable, but I thought he handled it pretty well, and it didn’t mar my enjoyment of the performance, which I still think is staged in an incredibly effective and powerful way, with no visuals throughout, until a short, heartbreaking clip accompanies the keyboard outro and final lines.

Steven was wearing his Miles Davis shirt, and said that Adam Holzman had been channeling Davis on the Refuge intro, and that his first time in Nancy had actually been as a keyboarder in Davis’ band, back in 1984, which didn’t really get a reaction. Steve scrambled to get something, anything from the audience, name-dropping what he considered essential Miles Davis songs and records, and Adam even walked up to Steven’s mic and gave an amusingly exasperated “I thought everyone liked Miles in France?!” (it was the first time I’ve ever heard him speak), to which Steven said “I guess everywhere but in Nancy“.

He then did his bit asking how many people in the audience were under the age of 25, and introduced them to what an electric guitar is. I’ve seen him crack this joke before, and the audience response was always great, even in sleepy Nancy! He seemed to be encouraged by the laughs, so he went on a really fascinating tangent and explained his theories about why he thinks that it’s disappeared from the mainstream: On one hand, he thinks it’s a natural evolution, and that it’s falling out of fashion and been phased out the way other instruments, such as the trumpet, have as well, while on the other hand, there are still a lot of people playing the guitar (someone yelled “Yeah! Very badly!“, and he loved that, and said that it doesn’t matter as long as you express what’s in your heart, and that he isn’t a “proper” guitar player either), but that he feels it has become more about technical ability rather than musical expression—a sport. So, to prove his point that an instrument should be the natural extension of a musicians’ very body, he said that he would attempt playing the solo in the next song without looking at the guitar—”and if I, a 51 year old English nerd, can pull it off, I might just look sexy for a minute, and that means there’s hope for the guitar yet“. The Same Asylum As Before followed, which took me a bit by surprise, as I’d been expecting People Who Eat Darkness, since that’s what he’s always followed his guitar talk with at the other shows I’ve seen, but that song seems to have disappeared from the setlists on this leg altogether. There was some funny synchronicity, because while he was playing Asylum, I wondered if and when they’d make Lasse Hoile’s video available online, and it was put up the very next day.

Ancestral closed the first set, and it was the first time that I was positioned in a way where I could see his hands on the keyboard. He was downing half a bottle of water while playing a fast, intricate-looking part on it—he may not have managed to play the solo without glancing at the guitar on the previous song, but the keys were no problem, and he’s got a point: It is pretty sexy when an instrument is played perfectly so nonchalantly. It was an incredible, tight performance, and me and A. got a thumbs up from Nick when we managed to clap along to the drum beat without making mistakes, haha. The show continued with the (expected) standard set after the intermission, and I take so much pleasure in watching Steven, Nick and Craig work those shakers on the Arriving Somewhere But Not Here intro.

He said that even though it’s a Wednesday night, we had to give him something, and the time had come for some disco dancing. He actually got booed by a good portion of this absolute shit-show of an audience when he introduced Permanating as the next song. He explained that metal was his gateway genre as a kid, and that he has generally found metal fans to be quite open-minded, which he loves, and that when he got off stage at Hellfest after choosing not to play it, everyone from the festival organizer to the promoters went up to him and like “Why didn’t you play it? They would’ve fucking loved it!“, at which point he was sorta interrupted by some guy in a really growly voice asking why, except it sounded more like an “aaaarghwhy?!?“, and he went “that’s a very good question, sir” in a dead-pan voice, and the contrast was hilarious to me, but you probably had to be there.

Song of I unfortunately didn’t feature his signature dance moves, at least not in the way I’m used to—you could tell the lack of enthusiasm was getting to him, and he wasn’t all in. Nick was delightful though, and actually drew most of my attention throughout the show: He was perhaps not his usual, exuberant self since he was still getting over his bronchitis (I could relate, as I was getting over an inconvenient cold and in the process of sweating out a damn fever at this show myself), but he was in a great mood and was especially supportive of our poor disco dancing attempts during Permanating.

I think this was the first show where I noticed that the photos used during Lazarus included Carrie as a child (I’m sure it’s a leftover from the HCE tour, but not having seen him on that tour, I didn’t make the connection!), and the live visual for Detonation, which I hadn’t payed that much attention to the other time I saw this song performed live, was so hypnotizing, it kinda fucked me up. Maybe because I wasn’t feeling well, but when the masked dancer starts marching to the beat and multiplying, it gave me some uneasy feeling of restless anxiety—it’s hard to put into words, but I had to forcefully tear my gaze away from it because it made me feel physically sick, and I was glad when that part of the song (which I really enjoy on the record) was over.

Somewhere on the intervening tour legs, masks were added to Vermillioncore—Steven wears a golden mask that is kinda creepy in its simplicity, while Adam wears a small, toy-like (pink? Hard to tell with the lighting during this song) gas mask that’s more funny than anything, really. I can’t say that I “get it” (I also still don’t really get what the message/intention behind the Insurgentes gas mask was), but it sure looks cool! The main set ended with Sleep Together, although I couldn’t fully enjoy it as I was taken by a coughing fit and missed my favorite part (the keyboard crescendo).

For the encore, Steven came back carrying his little amp, and again attempted to engage with the audience: He said that they’d agreed backstage that this had been the quietest audience they’d had all tour, and that he hoped it wasn’t because he’d talked too much, and that we now had the chance to make it up—there was my lone, croaky “wooo“, otherwise, crickets, and it was so funny that Steven had to chuckle himself and went “okay then“. He introduced his solo rendition of Even Less by saying that he thinks it was one of the best songs he’s written, and that the mark of a good song is that when you strip it of all the extra production and instruments and can perform it well with just your voice and guitar accompaniment. I love Even Less, but I find the Telecaster’s sound a bit too aggressive for it, and think it would be much improved if the band joined him from the second verse on or so, but I count my lucky stars to have gotten to hear it at all, and it’s a nice nod to the old school fans since he tends to dedicate it to those who’ve been listening to him since the 90’s.

Adam then joined him on stage, and they played Blackfield. That was a first for me, and after being quite disappointed that it hadn’t been played at my summer show for curfew reasons, I was thrilled! It was really tender and pretty, and A.’s first ever time hearing it (he’s only familiar with Porcupine Tree and Steven’s solo career), and he loved it so much, he had me look it up on Youtube to listen to it in the car on our drive to Luxembourg the next day. The rest of the band came back, and he introduced each member—Craig was called something along the lines of “Bee Bumble”, and it clearly took him so by surprise that he burst out laughing, while Nick was introduced as Nicola Beggs, “because every band needs at least one girl“.

Steven then introduced the final two songs saying “we will send you off with two miserable songs. One has a catchy chorus, there’s a part where I’ll ask you to sing it in my place, please do, or I’ll look foolish. The other one doesn’t have any redeeming quality, it’s just miserable, but suicidal depression is what you came for, and I’m here to deliver“, and of course the set ended with The Sound of Muzak and The Raven That Refused to Sing. I always think that I’m over the latter, but it’s the most perfect closer, and coupled with Jess Cope’s stunning video, it just rips my heart out in the best possible way.

Overall, it was my least favorite of the three shows I’ve seen, and perhaps not the best to start my mini-tour on—the band was top-notch, but when Steven says that they respond to the audience’s energy, it’s absolutely true, and the sparks weren’t flying the way they did at my two 2018 shows. I still left the venue feeling something other than misery though, and excited for things to come!

Setlist » F i r s t P a r t «

Nowhere Now

Pariah

Home Invasion

Regret #9

The Creator Has a Mastertape (Porcupine Tree)

Refuge

The Same Asylum As Before

Ancestral » S e c o n d P a r t «

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here (Porcupine Tree)

Permanating

Song Of I

Lazarus (Porcupine Tree)

Detonation

Vermillioncore

Sleep Together (Porcupine Tree) » E n c o r e «

Even Less (Porcupine Tree) (SW solo)

Blackfield (Blackfield) (acoustic SW and Adam Holzman)

The Sound Of Muzak (Porcupine Tree)

The Raven That Refused to Sing