Did you ever imagine

the last thing you’d hear

as you’re fading out

was a song?

I remember the exact moment I first heard a PT song – my best friend made me listen to In Absentia on her mp3 player (back when mp3 players looked like this) and I liked it… but for some reason I took to Opeth’s Watershed immensely, which she introduced me to on the same day, but never to PT to the same extent. It wasn’t until I saw Opeth live again at the end of 2016 and needed something to fill that prog void that I truly delved into their work, and Steven’s solo career and other side projects in the bargain. Well, you can’t even begin to imagine how many missed-concert-opportunity-regrets I have, but you might be able to guess how excited I was for this show for months leading up to it.

I don’t normally buy merch at shows because I find it crappy and overpriced (side-eyeing Tori), but this stuff was great value so I couldn’t resist, and I treated myself to a shirt (it has glow in the dark Raven cover art on the front, which is my favorite album!), a program, and a signed copy of To The Bone. We heard the very last bit of soundcheck, and today I am starting to doubt myself, but I’m almost 100% sure that what I heard was the last verse of Song of Unborn, which isn’t on the regular set. We chose to stand slightly to the right of Steven’s microphone, right in front of Adam Holzman’s set-up – when we got inside, he was tinkling on his keyboards and talking into a camera, it looked like they were shooting a behind the scenes teaser video of some sort (EDIT: It was a video on his synth rig which has now made its way onto Youtube). Steven plays barefoot, so the stage was thoroughly vacuumed before and after the support act, David Kollar, a Slovak experimental guitarist. He played a 15 minute set, which consisted of one continuous piece of instrumental guitar-based music, sometimes with some digital beats added in, and with many gimmicks to play with distortion and different sounds. It was pretty cool to watch, and some parts of the song (improvisation?) were pretty good, but he didn’t have much of a stage-presence, and didn’t speak to the audience at all.

Steven’s new album has stylistic elements and sounds that span his entire career, yet none of it feels rehashed – there’s such a variety of sound, and it’s a natural progression from Hand. Cannot. Erase. He really explored his vocal range on this one much more than on previous records, too, so I was very excited to hear it in its live incarnation, since his shows always focus heavily on the latest release. The show started at 8PM on the dot, was introduced by a short film about truth, and the first song played was Nowhere Now, which isn’t a favorite of mine at all, but I enjoyed it more than I would’ve thought – even though I found it a bit of a lackluster opener. I wish they’d opened with To the Bone instead, which is one of the better songs on the album, and in my eyes the perfect song to open the set with, especially following the introduction video. It’s catchy and accessible, but still has some amazing riffs and harmonies, and would be perfectly at home on any of the more mainstream, pop-oriented Porcupine Tree albums, such as Stupid Dreams or Lightbulb Sun. Unfortunately, they tried it out at the first few shows of the tour and apparently weren’t happy with it, so it wasn’t played at all. Still, I really liked Nowhere Now as a live song, and it’s given me a new appreciation for the studio version as well! Pariah was next, and it’s another bottom tier song for me (I think this is a pretty unpopular opinion). Even though his vocals on it are so very lovely, I often skip it because I don’t really like Ninet’s parts. I usually love their duets, but here her vocals are more jarring than complementing to my ears, and there’s something about her chorus that I can’t stand – maybe it’s not even so much her vocals, but the pairing with that repetitive tinkling keyboard sound? I don’t know, but it’s not a favorite. Ninet wasn’t there, obviously, and the fact that her vocals came from a tape while her face was projected on a giant curtain certainly didn’t improve the performance any – it was definitely the low point of the show for me. It wasn’t bad, but this is the only song I would’ve gladly swapped out for a different one – Song of Unborn, for example!

He greeted the audience after this – it was a general admission show, while most others on the tour are actually seated (which is so weird to me, but ok), and he remarked on how much more enthusiastic than the previous nights’ German crowd we were, and told us he’d bought a fitbit a couple days before, and that he’d give us regular updates on how many steps he’d take and how many calories he’d burn on stage, and that we were directly responsible for his health, it was funny. He’d burned 200-something calories with the first two songs, and then he asked Craig, the drummer, to say how much he’d burned, and his fitbit came to 700-something, so he goes “and the moral of the story, kids, is that if you want to stay fit, you gotta learn how to play the drums, not the guitar“. He said that he’d play a lot of new stuff, but also things from his “back catalogue of 3000 albums“, and that the next song was from the previous record… and this is where things started to get truly mind-blowing. Home Invasion and Regret #9 are a highlight on Hand. Cannot. Erase for me, so I was happy he kept them around, and the latter had some really nice visuals, too. Since these are mostly instrumental tracks, you could really tell how well they play together, and his band deserves a special shout-out – he truly has a knack for surrounding himself with the best live musicians in the business: Nick Beggs on bass, Alex Hutchings on guitar, Adam Holzman on keyboards, and Craig Blundell on drums. There’s this one bit in Home Invasion (on the record it happens at 1:58) where there was a truly massive wall of sound going on, and they all stopped for like a bar or two, and it was so perfectly synchronized and complete that it got so silent for a split second, you could’ve heard a pin drop, it blew my mind. I thought the space cake I’d eaten before the show was finally kicking in during this, but it turned out to just be a really fucking good performance, haha. Sidenote: clapping along to progressive rock is hard, and at some point Steve kneeled down and was playing the guitar one handed while distorting the sound and doing loops directly on the pedals with his other hand, it was amazing to watch, and he was so concentrated, his tongue stuck out, haha. The Creator Has a Mastertape was the first of six Porcupine Tree songs played, and I thought it went with Home Invasion and Regret #9 amazingly well, both musically and thematically; they flowed into each other seamlessly. Before the tour started he had promised that In Absentia and Deadwing would be getting some love in the setlists, since remastered version were about to be released, and apparently he decided to go with more obscure tracks – this one hadn’t been played in concert since 2003 before this tour! Whereas on the album it has some creepy distorted vocals, he sang all of it clean live, and it made me love it even more.

Refuge is already one of the album’s stand-out tracks, but live it was truly something else – my “unexpected” highlight of the night. He sat on a stool for the first part and his vocals knocked me out – he nailed all of them, the tender notes, the falsetto, the sudden changes in pitch, it was truly out of this world… and then he got his guitar for the crescendo and just, wow. Everything about this song, the lyrics, the vocals, the instrumentals, that guitar solo, the outro… all of it is just so breathtakingly, devastatingly beautiful, as were the heartbreaking visuals. He gave us a fitbit update before the next song, he was up to 16,000 steps during the show alone, and I believe almost 3000 calories. People Who Eat Darkness was my instant favorite from the new album, and live it was an Experience™. I can’t stay still when I hear that guitar riff, and I like his driven vocal delivery in the context of the song’s theme, and the contrast to the softer bridge – plus the Jess Cope animations created for the song especially for the live performance on the tour are nothing short of incredible, and without giving anything away, personally, they made me appreciate the song even more, because I felt that I gained a deeper understanding of the lyrics from them! Ancestral is probably my most favorite Steven Wilson song, ever. It takes me on such a sonic journey, and I can listen to it on repeat for hours on end without getting sick of it – it makes me cry and headbang at the same time, it’s just an incredible piece of songwriting, a masterpiece. I also really love it when he switches back and forth between playing the guitar and the keys! This concluded Part 1 of the show.

Deadwing is my favorite Porcupine Tree album, and Arriving Somewhere But Not Here was perhaps my highlight? It’s so hard to choose, but the crowd definitely freaked out the most for this one, and it was a perfect “second opener”. I loved how he sang the echo on the first verses, so pretty! He told us about the 70’s pop music that he pays homage to with the next song, which is his favorite on the new record and one he’s very proud of, although “whilethere are people who like it, those who don’t, well, they REALLY don’t like it, and they are very vocal about it“. He says that it embodies the exuberant joy for life that’s always been a part of his music as much as the conceptual rock stuff, if people only look hard enough, and that he loves looking out into the audience and seeing long-haired, full-bearded metal-heads in Opeth and Machine Head shirts dance to this. I’ve unabashedly loved Permanating from the first time I heard it; it’s fresh and catchy and there’s really nothing to dislike about it, except that it’s not something you would expect Steven Wilson to put out – it’s like nothing he’s ever done, and yet, it’s totally like him. I, for one, love it when artists can still surprise me this far into their career, and this is brilliant and everything a good pop song should be. I love its playful exuberance, and it translated so well live – disco ball and a happy, smiley Steve included – it just fills me with immense joy. All the prog snobs can keep their heads up their asses as far as I’m concerned, I’ll be over here dancing to this, loving every second of it. I just love the fact that he’s doing his own thing and not letting the audience’s expectations dictate his output.

I’ve liked Sophie Hunger for a while, and Song of I is such an unlikely collaboration, I never would’ve dreamed of it – but I love how their voices complement each other, and how different and experimental it sounds. It’s transcends into trip hop, and sounds… well, like what a Steven Wilson song remixed by Massive Attack sounds like in my head. It’s dark, sultry, sensual, and has a bit of an Index vibe, although it doesn’t get quite as creepy. There were some cool visuals projected onto a curtain for this one, and his whole stage demeanor was pretty hot. I didn’t mind the canned vocals on this one at all, either, compared to Pariah, perhaps because it is so trip-hoppy and electronic to begin with. Lazarus breaks and then puts my heart back together. I found its setlist position a bit odd, flow-wise, but I love this song with all my soul. Detonation is my favorite track on the new album, what an amazing prog epic – I love the distorted vocals and that sudden change of vibe halfway through. It’s so Steven, I don’t even know where it would best fit into his previous discography – I can hear elements from Insurgentes and Deadwing, yet all in the flavor of To The Bone with a vague 80’s throwback, and that hypnotic instrumental ending has a bit of the old psychedelic ambient sound of Up the Downstair.

I didn’t notice it, but Nick had apparently come in with the bassline four bars early. Steven chastised him for it in perfect British deadpan humor, it was great (“he’s made a horrible mistake in that last song. I turn my back on you“). He introduced the band, and then went on a bit of an interesting tangent about the pop music he grew up with, Prince, the use of falsetto, all to introduce The Same Asylum As Before… I could listen to him talk all day. I’m super into the instrumentation and the falsetto (which he nailed), and they had amazing visuals for this one, too, with a bit of a Harmony Korine music video vibe, but not quite as dark. Heartattack in a Layby is the other more obscure In Absentia song he’s brought back for this tour, it hadn’t been played since 2005 – it was never a favorite of mine, but I have now seen the light??? It was incredibly haunting and ethereal – I felt like he sang it in a slightly different key than on the album, but whatever was different about it, it finally made the song click for me. Vermillioncore was a joy to watch: There were visuals going on (judging from Youtube videos, they were the same or a variation of the ones used in 2016), but I honestly couldn’t tell you much about them, because I was too intent on watching them all play the shit out of their instruments – especially Nick, who really went crazy on that bass. Sleep Forever was a perfect way to close the show, and segued from the previous song really well. I was glad my second favorite Porcupine Tree record was represented, the synth strings are impeccable, and I love how aggressive Steven’s voice sounds on this song – it’s pretty rare that he gets rough like that, and live it was further aided by some additional distortion on the chorus.

For the encore, Steven played a solo version of PT’s Even Less. I’d never heard that song in an acoustic incarnation – although I should say solo, because he played it on an electric guitar hooked up to a tiny, cute little amp. He mentioned that it was the first song he wrote where he thought to himself that he would not be embarrassed to play it in a stripped down version in front of people, so that’s what he was gonna do, and dedicated it to the old school PT fans who’ve been supporting his music since that song came out. I love the lyrics, and think that it goes perfectly with the new album’s theme, but I would’ve preferred hearing it with the full band, and have him play an acoustic version of something else. He also changed the preposition throughout the whole song, making it “to even less” instead of “for even less”. He said that he’d found out about Prince’s passing 20 minutes before getting on stage the last time he was in Vienna, and that he’d played a very sombre show and then improvised a solo version of a Prince song that he then incorporated into the set every night on that tour – except Vienna never got treated to a proper version of it, so they were going to play it now. It was a really funky rendition of Sign O’ the Times, and I’m glad I got a surprise since I’d spoiled the setlist for myself – but A. was pretty disappointed that it had replaced Harmony Korine, which is one of his favorites. Still, I’m sure we’re much more likely to hear that song at a future show than the Prince cover again, and we both really liked it. It was a tour debut and he said that they hadn’t really rehearsed it – he stumbled through some lyrics as well, but it was a valiant effort!

The Raven that Refused to Sing closed the show. The music video played on the screens, and I was pretty close to tears for this one – it really gets me, and he seemed pretty emotional singing it, himself. Also, with Raven being my favorite album, I was glad to be sent off with a song from it! I walked out in a daze – I had incredibly high expectations for this gig, and that tends not to go too well, but he somehow managed to exceed them. A. is completely smitten, too, and insists it was in the top 3 best shows he’s ever seen. I’ve seen a lot more shows than him and don’t believe in ranking live experiences, anyway, but I definitely haven’t left a (non-Tori) show quite this elated since Massive Attack in early 2016. I really couldn’t have wished for a better way to spend my Valentine’s Day, and I hope he’ll swing back this way on the second European leg – I’m not missing any more SW gigs!

P.S. If, like me, you were left wondering how many calories a prog drummer burns off during a two-and-a-half-hour show, I’ve got you covered:

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

People Who Eat Darkness

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

The Same Asylum As Before

Heartattack in a Layby (Porcupine Tree)

Vermillioncore

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

Even Less (Porcupine Tree) (SW solo)

Sign “☮” the Times (Prince)

The Raven That Refused to Sing