I stared into the void tonight

The best dream I ever had

This show was the only seated gig I booked on the tour, and I was super excited for it since I scored front row center seats, and because this is one of my favorite venues in the world, with some of the most glorious, crystal clear sound I’ve ever experienced. I was also sure that the production would feel more immersive than usual because of a “curved” stage that has the audience wrap around the band slightly!

Having been to Munich many times, we didn’t have much sight-seeing we wanted to do, and were in the area in the early afternoon already, when a black van pulled around the corner and the band minus Steven stepped out with all their personal luggage. We said hi to everyone as they passed us on the way to the stage door (and got a hi back and smile from each), but they seemed in a hurry, so we left it at that. There were two fans who were clearly there hoping to catch them though, and the guys signed some autographs for them while walking, but quickly disappeared into the venue. We stuck around for a bit, and saw Alex go out to the venue restaurant for a late lunch with someone from the crew, and Craig start on his afternoon walk. Just as we were about to leave, a taxi pulled up by the stage door, and the two other waiting fans immediately went up to it. Someone stepped out with their hood up, and A. said “that’s not Steven, that’s a lady“, except that it was actually Steven, who just looked really petite in a parka a size too big for him. He had a huge suitcase he was dragging along by himself, and I’m sure that if there hadn’t been anyone around to speak to him first I would’ve left him alone (I don’t get star-struck, exactly, but I always feel like I’m intruding, so I need someone to do the approaching and get the “celebrity” to signal that they’re willing to give the fans a few minutes of their time, if that makes any sense at all), but he was nice enough to stop, and he signed my Insurgentes album and took a picture with me—he was really patient too, because A. couldn’t get his iPhone to focus properly at first, so we posed for a good thirty seconds with our arms around each other (just long enough for me to start feeling really awkward and having to fix the rising heat in my face with a filter later, haha)! His eyes are the palest, clearest blue I’ve ever seen, and here’s me having my week/month/year made and doing my best impression of the heart eyes emoji.

As we walked away, the cab driver leaned out of the window and called over “excuse me, who was that?“. He’d waited a few minutes for us to be done just to ask us that, we thought it was really cute! I told him to check him out, and he said he would.

My lucky streak continued that evening when we entered the auditorium and I found one of his soundcheck picks on my seat! The show started on the dot as usual, and it was the first time that no one chuckled at the “sit back and relax” bit introducing the Truth intro video, since it was actually a seated show for once. It was also the first time that Pariah, always my least favorite part of the show, did it for me—I got goosebumps from Ninet’s vocals, which is very unusual as I don’t really care for Ninet on this particular song (I actually prefer the demo version sung only by Steven). The welcome speech that followed was pretty funny; as we all well know, he’s not a fan of seated shows, and he also likes to make fun of how quiet German audiences generally are in other countries, so he started with “I know it’s difficult to express your ~German passion~ when sitting down, but…“, which got the whole room laughing. It was a “it’s funny because it’s true” situation, because while we were tapping our thighs to the beat, sorta headbanging, and generally just, you know, moving to the music, there were people who were just sitting there motionless. The guy next to A. had his legs stretched out and crossed, and was leaning back into his seat as if he were at the movies. I’m not someone who’s super active at shows, and A. even less so, but I genuinely don’t understand how some people can let this kind of music just wash over them without any physical reaction whatsoever.

He proceeded to say that he’d love for us to show enthusiasm, because they have fun on stage, and they want us to have fun as well. But what they really love to do… is bully the drummer. I think this was a first for this joke being put this way, because Craig’s face was absolutely priceless in this moment, while the rest of the band were cracking up. Steven then told a hilarious story about playing in Japan at the end of last year, and that even though people warned him that Japanese audiences are very polite and would only applaud at the end of the show, he found them to be insane and really enthusiastic… but that it’s like they live in a different dimension, because they clapped out of rhythm, but somehow managed to all clap out of rhythm together. “Now, imagine being the drummer in a rock band, keeping the beat, and the entire 2000 person audience is doing something different. Well, I want you to help me throw Craig off, I feel like tonight is the night. Why would I want to sabotage my own show, you ask? It’s worth it to get to laugh at Craig. And it’s been a looooong tour.” He then also mentioned that they’d only played Munich on the summer leg of the tour, and that the songs in the second half would be different, so people shouldn’t leave in the interval because he was playing the same stuff again. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, I had been under the impression that this was the third show here, and had been expecting a set similar to Luxembourg as a result, but oh well! I enjoy having my setlist expectations challenged. At this show, it occurred to me to count the Carries in the video for Regret #9, and in case you were wondering, there aren’t nine of them, but only seven, which kinda seems like a missed opportunity. What gives, Lasse?

The unexpected highlight of the evening for me was The Creator Has a Mastertape. I don’t know what it was about this particular performance, but I was completely taken by it. There’s a bit in the beginning where Craig deviates from the beat on purpose, which used to bother me the first few times I heard it, but it gives the song a bit of a… jerk that suits the story it tells, so while it’s jarring if you’re used to the studio version at first, it works for it. I found this performance to be completely hypnotizing, and loved every second of it! Refuge was lovely and heart-felt as ever, but just as in Nancy, his voice broke on the one sustained note—you could tell that he was mad at himself because he pulled a grimace of disappointment. The usual electric guitar shtick preceded The Same Asylum As Before, except this time he answered his own question: “When is the last time you heard a guitar solo in a mainstream song? The 90’s, right? Oasis and Nirvana“, and among confused yells of random bands, he picked out one person calling “Porcupine Tree!“, which prompted him to tell the story of the dude who’d name-dropped Opeth in Luxembourg, adding that “I’ve always managed to steer clear of the mainstream… not by choice“. He got a bit ahead of himself and announced that he was going to attempt playing the solo without looking at the guitar, but he noticed that he hadn’t actually elaborated on why, so he backtracked to add that it’s sexy when the instrument is an extension of the musician’s body, slung at waist-height rather than being up by their necks. He snuck a few looks, but did a better job at it than at the previous shows, and while he was walking towards the drumset, Craig mouthed a very obvious “SO SEXY” at him. Steven payed him back (I don’t recall during which song) by getting up on the drum platform and trying to distract him by flashing him his belly and drumming a wrong beat on it—at least that’s what it looked like he was doing from behind, and Craig was laughing his ass off, but didn’t fuck up!

Steven’s photographer friend Diana (@lidschlag) was in attendance and had special privileges to take pictures through-out the whole show, and she had a real field day during Ancestral, crawling along at the back of the stage to take pictures of everyone. I haven’t seen those surface yet, I hope they do, she always gets stunning shots. Anyway, this was our best chance to get Craig off rhythm, and the whole band tried their hardest by clapping off beat and enticing the audience to do the same (it’s harder than you’d think, and I couldn’t not clap along correctly!). Craig made it through without any mistakes though, and had the most gleeful grin on his face while Steven just shook his head at the failed attempt, haha.

I was a bit taken aback when the first song after the interval turned out to be Arriving—the setlist so far had been the standard one, but since he said that they’d play different songs, I expected the No Twilight set. Turns out that they’d played Don’t Hate Me at the Munich summer show though, so this was indeed a first for the city. As he started introducing Permanating, Steven went “now the time has come…” and me and A. immediately jumped up, which made him go “you guys are way ahead of me” before continuing his speech. He said that the big guys with Pantera shirts and tattoos are his favorites as far as disco dancing goes, and that the people in Pink Floyd and King Crimson shirts always looks like they don’t know what to do since those bands don’t need the audience to express anything because they themselves don’t express anything on stage (this comment didn’t land well at all, he had to say it was a joke to get people to stop grumbling, heh). He said that it’s by far the most divisive song he’s ever written, and that at his show in Turkey he had a guy front and center (here he pointed at the man sitting next to A., going “right where you are tonight, sir“) who loved the whole show… but turned his back on him for this song. Literally turned around with his arms crossed and didn’t move for the length of it, and how sad and pathetic he thought that was. He added that even if we don’t like it, the great thing about pop songs is that they are only three and a half minutes long, and asked everyone to indulge him and get up and show him our best moves. It was fun since we had more space to move in than at general admission shows, and the couple next to us was really dancey as well—he smiled and pointed our way a few times, as did Nick, it was great!

We all sat back down for Song Of I (I appreciated the enthusiasm of the lady next to me who tried to appeal to me with “aww no, don’t sit down yet, not for this song!” though), and I gotta say that the holograms blew my mind. It was my first time being far enough away from the stage to really get the full effect, and I never realized that Steven’s stage moves often actually match up with or otherwise complement what the projected dancer is doing! Once she multiplies he’s standing between her legs and it looks amazing. I honestly can’t get enough of this song and the extended instrumental part—and Alex playing the electric guitar with a violin bow looks and sounds really cool. The first really unexpected song of the evening was Heartattack in a Layby making a comeback! It hadn’t been played at the summer shows (although we heard them soundcheck it in Dresden), so that’s likely why, and it was the loveliest of surprises, it’s such a heartbreaking, delicate track, and the vocal harmonies at the end never fail to give me goosebumps. A personal highlight for sure, and I was mesmerized enough that I was briefly confused why the hologram curtain was being set up again, but of course it was Vermillioncore. We got the so far best look at the masks, and the way the projection on the curtain and the video on the LED screen at the back interact is really great to see. When they don’t have the curtain, both videos are played on the screen, but that overlay doesn’t quite have the same effect as with all the empty space in between. My favorite bits are when Nick and his thumb go berserk when that one bass part kicks in, and Steven standing by the keyboards and conducting with his finger and… catching the drum hits in the air. I don’t have any other words to describe it, but if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know exactly what I mean!

Sleep Together closed the set, as was to be expected, and the way the lights (as odd as a purple and green combination is!) diffuse on the smoke hanging over their heads looks stunning—so simple, but really cool-looking. It was the first show I saw this year where he really went all-in with his hand movements (I call it ‘casting spells’) during Adam’s time to shine, and I love it when he does that. By the time the last notes were still ringing out, the whole audience was on their feet and cheering for an encore before they’d even left the stage!

He came back with the Tele and his practice amp for his usual solo rendition of Even Less. He introduced it by saying that he never reads reviews because there’s always something that irks him, even in the stellar ones… but someone sent him a review of a Canadian show (I think it was Toronto?), and he found himself reading it before he realized what he was doing. It was a really great review, but what bothered him is that the writer put in something along the lines of “Wilson also played some Porcupine Tree cover songs“, which made him ask whether it’s possible for an artist to cover his own songs… but whatever the answer, he was going to play us one such “cover” now, “on this beautiful 1963 Fender Telecaster“, which got a bit of applause that made him go “thank you for pretending to care“.

The encore was cut short and the next song was the final one, The Raven That Refused to Sing. He introduced the band before playing it—this evening, Craig became “Train Crumble“, and Nick was introduced with “and because every band needs a girl… Nichola Beggs!” as in Nancy again, which made Nick respond with “ladies and gentlemen… Steven Wilson, the biggest bitch in the band!“, which made Craig crack up so hard we could hear him even though he was nowhere near a mic. Steven was already sitting on his little stool and went “ok… you’re fired. And you’re also fired” to the both of them in a dead-pan voice, and Craig gave some thumbs up and did a little happy dance, which made Steven go “oh, he’s happy to be rid of me” or something along those lines, but he had a hard time suppressing his smile.

I managed to score a setlist, and it turned out that Postcard and Sound of Muzak were supposed to be played in the encore. Every show I’ve ever seen at this venue has been amazing, but felt short and ended early-ish—I think they have a really strict curfew that states everyone needs to be out of the auditorium by 11PM or something, because it just turned the full hour when we stepped outside, and we’d had to get our coats first (we were pretty quick about it, but still—if they only had a regular 11PM curfew (as in, off the stage by then) they easily could’ve managed one more song. Despite the ‘regular’ set, it was my favorite of the three shows I’ve seen this week, I was really feeling it, and so was the band! It’s the by far most immersive To The Bone concert experience I’ve had thanks to the curved stage and the hologram curtain being further away from the front rows than usual too, and with getting to meet Steven and the unexpected goodies, it was a good bounty for a single day!

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

Heartattack in a Layby (Porcupine Tree)

Vermillioncore

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

Even Less (Porcupine Tree) (SW solo)

The Raven That Refused to Sing