It's been 20 years and a few months since I first saw Porcupine Tree (PT) play live. The place was a huge parking lot next to Ellinikos Kosmos cultural center in Athens. I remember being satisfied by their performance, but they were totally eclipsed by the support band, Love, whose leader Arthur Lee was recently released from prison and making up for a lost decade with a sensational, and very emotional, presence. A few years later, I saw PT again, this time supported by another legend, Van Der Graaf Generator. Which makes last week's show in Amsterdam the 3rd PT concert I've been to. The band were back from a 10-year hiatus and eager to prove they are still relevant. The lineup featured Steven Wilson, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and drummer Gavin Harrison from the old band as well as new members Randy McStine from New York, UK, and Nate Navarro from Texas, UK (according to Wilson, at least). No support band this time - and none was needed, as the show lasted for 3 hours, minus a 20-minute interval. They played their new album in its entirety, as well as a selection of past favorites - mainly from In Absentia and Fear of a Blank Planet. The new songs went down well with the crowd. Hearing them for the first time myself, I got the impression that the new album must be a typical, albeit above average, PT affair. Including many older songs was probably meant as a reward for the fans who had patiently waited for their return, but the result was an over-long show, which can be a bit tiresome for a "band without hit singles" as Steve Wilson himself described PT. That said, the band played impeccably, while some numbers were nicely augmented with visual content on a big screen. The whole show was being filmed for a possible BluRay release - which would make it the second time a Dutch PT show is released officially, after Anesthetize (recorded in Tilburg in 2008). A few times during the concert, Wilson had to ask for a more enthusiastic audience participation, even jokingly threatening to dub audience noise from a Harry Styles DVD. Well, he may be a talented songwriter/musician, but his stage banter needs some work. I wonder if they'll edit these bits out.
Still under the influence of the concert, I decided to present a PT album for my next blog entry. The obvious choice would be their latest release Closure/Continuation, but since I don't have it yet, I chose one of the 3 live CDs in my collection. As it is, none of them had a similar tracklist to the show I just witnessed: Coma Divine (1997) is mostly based on Signify and the band's period on the Delerium label, Warszawa (2004) is mostly based on Lightbulb Sun, and Octane Twisted (2012) contains the entirety of The Incident plus a few extra tracks. I settled on Warszawa as it has some of my favorites on it. This is not a concert recording, but a 2001 session for Polish radio, recorded live in the presence of a small audience. The session was widely bootlegged, prompting the band to release their own, superior, version, remixed from the 32-channel multitrack ADAT tapes. 6 out of the 11 tracks come from the band's then-latest CD Lightbulb Sun (2000), which is the apex of the band's psychedelic/space rock phase. Their later move towards a prog/metal hybrid would prove more successful, but for me PT never bettered Sun. Warszawa opens with "Even Less", a typically Floyd-ish song from the Stupid Dream album, and one of only 2 songs here that also featured in last week's concert. It's followed by another track from the same album, "Slave Called Shiver" featuring a more alt-rock sound with a funky foundation. "Shesmovedon" is among their poppier melodic songs, great guitar and excellent backing vocals reminiscent of 60's folk rock (think CSN&Y). "Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth" (the other track still in their setlist) also starts as an acoustic piece but veers off into space rock territory with spacey guitar and keys, and a weird spoken word excerpt by the leader of a suicide cult. "Lightbulb Sun" brings the electric guitar back to the foreground, followed by 12-minute prog epic "Russia on Ice", and a shorter melodic piece called "Where We Would Be". Next up there's aggressive rocker "Hatesong" and the atmospheric "Stop Swimming". The CD closes with two (even) older tracks. First off is "Voyage 34". In its original form it was a 30-minute electronic/trance track describing a fateful LSD trip. Hearing it re-purposed for live performance is pretty exciting: spacy guitar solos and synths reminiscent of Pink Floyd circa Meddle, while the narration and Dead Can Dance samples from the original are reprised here to provide that other-worldly atmosphere. An excellent showcase of PT's early space rock sound. After that, closing with an instrumental, even one as kinetic and complex as "Signify" seems anticlimactic. A recent (2020) remaster reinstates "Tinto Brass" in its rightful place - it was the only song performed during the session but initially omitted from the CD so that the show could fit into a single disc. Now, as a live band PT are always solid. What they lack in showmanship they make up for with their arrangements and musicianship. One's choice of live PT release would depend on which of their periods they like the best. For myself, I slightly prefer Warszawa to their other live CDs and DVDs, because it draws mostly from Lightbulb Sun and Stupid Dream, two of my favorites. I'd like to see them compile their all-time best songs in a single set some time, instead of focusing on their latest release. They might end up with a great live album for once, instead of another solid one.
**** for Even Less, Slave Called Shiver, Shesmovedon, Lightbulb Sun, Hatesong, Voyage 34
*** for Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth, Russia on Ice, Where We Would Be, Stop Swimming, Signify
No comments:
Post a Comment