Steven Wilson stalks the stage, a gaunt figure clad all in
black, starkly contrasting with the pale skin of the bare feet
in which he always performs. His straight, shoulder-length hair
whips around with the lethality of a cat o’ nine tails, as he
violently shakes his head during a solo. But wait…I’m getting
ahead of myself. Please bear with me. This is lengthy, but
worthwhile (I think).
I arrived at the House of Blues in Orlando at approximately 6
p.m. – half an hour before the doors opened for Porcupine Tree
with special guests, Bigelf. The line was already wrapped around
the restaurant / concert hall, and in typical sadistic fashion,
the venue was ignoring the effects that the Central Florida heat
and humidity would have on its patrons for the evening. Each
show there the throngs end up sweating profusely before they
even enter the building.
I struck up a conversation with a fellow lone concert attendee,
a Clearwater resident named Larry, who looked to be about 10
years older than me – say...53 or thereabouts. Larry was stuck
with extra tickets, which he quickly sold in front of the box
office and returned to wait with me in the queue. As we talked
about progressive rock, his face exploded into a smile when I
mentioned I’d heard of one of his new favorite bands, Magic Pie,
a Norwegian group that has escaped the notice of all he has met
before. He was further surprised that I had seen them perform
live. It was a really nice conversation – the kind you end up
forgetting over time, but while it’s still fresh in my mind, I
had to remark upon it, in case he ever reads this review, so
that he will know that I am thankful I had something enjoyable
to do while waiting in the humid Orlando evening.
Promptly at 7 p.m. the line began moving and I took my leave of
Larry once inside the venue, so that I could make the obligatory
stop at the merchandise stand, where I picked up a tour shirt.
After my purchase, I overheard a guy in an old NEARfest t-shirt
quoting the song "PTtee" by DeeExpus, and mentioning that he’d
be seeing them the following weekend. I couldn’t help but wish
him an enjoyable ROSfest weekend and we struck up a
conversation. It turns out that he – Andrew – had attended
several concerts where I had also been present: a few different
Rites of Spring Festivals, and Genesis in Columbus, Ohio, on the
recent Turn it On Again Tour. Andrew, it turns out, had
introduced Annie Haslam to the stage at the second ROSfest. So I
phoned George Roldan of ROSfest to let him know that Andrew and
I were about to see Porcupine Tree. George is always fun to talk
to and he wished us well.
I found myself a spot to stand – the House of Blues is pretty
much standing-room only – on a staircase on the right side of
the mixing desk, because it was near the handicapped seating
area. I wanted to make sure to say hello to Cryptic Vision
drummer Rick Duncan at the show and as his wife is unfortunately
wheelchair bound, I knew Rick would be in that area for the
show. As I waited for Rick, the clock struck 8 p.m. and Bigelf
hit the stage for the opening act.
Bigelf performed their 40-minute set with reckless abandon, with
lead singer and keyboardist Damon Fox looking demented in his
ubiquitous top hat. You know something good will happen when you
see a mellotron on stage, and it did. Bigelf’s set is part
psychedelia, part progressive rock. Fox called it "stoner rock"
but it is something else. It’s somewhere between Deep Purple,
Black Sabbath and Black Bonzo without quite being any of those.
With such limited time, the band played only six songs, but they
made all of them count, leaning heavily on their latest release,
Cheat the Gallows. Bigelf’s musicianship could certainly
not be questioned, nor could their passion, but I did find Fox’s
vocals to be a bit flat at times. It’s understandable with what
he was doing on the keyboard at the time, and he would probably
tell me that it doesn’t matter if he hits the notes perfectly
anyway. I get the feeling that the mood and the music are the
important things.
Bigelf’s set consisted of (as far as I can recall): "The Evils
of Rock & Roll," "Hydra," "Neuropsychopathic Eye," "Bats in the
Belfry," "Madhatter" and "Money, It’s Pure Evil." While they
didn’t completely blow me away, I did enjoy the band’s
performance, and would like to see them stretch their legs with
a longer set. They seemed to be just hitting their stride when
it was time to finish things up.
During Bigelf’s performance I noticed that Rick and his wife had
arrived and during the intermission between bands I chatted
briefly with the Cryptic Vision drummer. I did not want to
intrude too deeply into his night out with his wife. Rick was,
as usual, gracious with his time. I enjoy being a champion of
his band because not only is their music fantastic, but each of
the band members I’ve spoken to seems like a great guy. Rick has
been going through some personal trials of late and even though
the latest Cryptic Vision album is near completion, the
production has stopped for the time being while he takes care of
more important matters. Still, he was very nice in suggesting
that he may have some demos of new tracks that are of high
enough quality to play on my radio show. Whether that comes to
pass or not, it warmed my heart that he would even suggest it.
As an announcement over the PA system indicated we were not to
pull out our cell phones, especially to take photos, video or
audio of the band, under penalty of death, I noticed that the
place was considerably more full than the last time I’d seen PT
at this venue. My dark side momentarily touched on the tragedy
that would befall us all if a fire broke out, because there was
no way we’d all get out without considerable carnage. There
were, simply put, way too many bodies per square inch in the
joint. Good for the band, but bad for those of us who didn’t
want our feet stepped on, or fat, sweaty guys brushing up
against us on the way to and from the bar and / or restroom. Oh,
and I saw at least six people violate the cell phone edict over
the course of the show.
That brings us back to where this all started, with Mr. Wilson
stalking the stage. This was my fourth time seeing Porcupine
Tree as a full band – having also seen a stripped down acoustic
gig that was basically Wilson and hired gun John Wesley at a
local indie record store – and I had never seen PT’s front man
so animated. He seems to have developed more stage presence
since I saw the band on the Tour of a Blank Planet. He was more
expressive, moved around a lot more, rocked out with the
aforementioned hair whipping, and even displayed his wry sense
of humor at times.
"If you shout out a band member’s name," Wilson remarked,
"nothing actually will happen. Particularly if it’s during one
of our more ambient passages."
The band launched into their 55-minute title song cycle from
their latest release, The Incident. Seeing the material
performed live in its entirety had an unusual effect on me. It
seemed to polarize the epic for me – the sections I liked on the
album I liked even more, and the sections I didn’t like as much
did nothing at all for me in the live setting. Still, the band
scorched on "The Blind House" and the harmonizing of Wilson and
Wesley on the all-too-brief "Kneel and Disconnect" gave me
chills. I thought the live presentation of "Drawing the Line"
really opened up the song and let it breathe, as did the
performance of the album’s centerpiece, "Time Flies." By the
time the piece ended with the darkly gorgeous "I Drive the
Hearse," I really needed a 10-minute break to digest it all –
which is exactly what the band gave the crowd, complete with a
countdown timer on the big screen.
After the break, the band opened up their (mostly) recent
catalog. "Start of Something Beautiful" off the Deadwing
album provided a mixture of dark ambience and crunch to start
the second set. The oldest song of the night, "Russia on Ice"
from the 2000 release Lightbulb Sun, was next ,and went
over well with the masses. An absolutely face-melting middle
section of "Anesthetize" followed, from Fear of a Blank
Planet, highlighted by the drumming of Gavin Harrison –
catlike, if cats moved in odd time signatures – and the bass of
Colin Edwin. PT contrasted the rocker sharply by following with
the soft "Lazarus" from Deadwing. Richard Barbieri’s
keyboard soundscapes set an incredibly beautiful yet dark mood
on many Porcupine Tree songs, but nowhere more so than on this
song.
Returning to Blank Planet, the band kicked into "Way Out
of Here," one of my favorite tracks off recent Porcupine Tree
albums, and the song with arguably the best accompanying video
on the projection screen. The dark-haired girl with the iPod,
walking forlornly along the train tracks is so powerful that it
almost overshadows a great song, performed flawlessly. Touching
on the Nil Recurring EP, Wilson opened "Normal" with an
insanely difficult piece of acoustic guitar work. The second set
was finished off by the manic "Bonnie the Cat" off the second
disc of The Incident. It’s a quirky piece that again
shows off Harrison’s chops, but for some reason it didn’t work
that well for me in the live setting.
For the encore, the band finally paid a visit to one of my
favorite PT albums, In Absentia. They kicked into "The
Sound of Muzak" and closed off the evening with the
crowd-pleasing "Trains," featuring Wilson on acoustic guitar
again. The song was a perfect end to a magical two-hour trip
with modern progressive rock’s premiere band. That the band can
pull in a crowd as diverse as the one that shared the experience
with me is a statement about their appeal. There were
grade-school kids and geezers side by side. And, unlike many
prog shows, there were ladies. Yes, there were many female
attendees among the PT faithful. And no wonder, as the music of
this band transcends genres, demographics and time itself.
I can hardly wait until they come back.
