Just so nobody gets terribly excited, the venue didn’t allow cameras (more on that later in this post) so I have zero pictures from the show, leaving only my always thrilling written account of a concert to be posted. I know, you’re probably shaking with exhilaration at this point…

I’m still amazed that I even got to see Porcupine Tree on Tuesday night. The show was in Seattle- a good 7 hour trip, meaning I had to skip two days of school and find somebody willing to drive there. So basically I whored the fact that my birthday is next Friday, and since I’ll be 18 I should get something kinda special… Surprisingly, it worked. And Jed (see The 7th Act) went with me, so that made the trip itself a bit more entertaining.

Anyways, The Moore Theater was a nice enough venue: It looked spectacular, though it was obviously quite old… Their site claims it holds over 1400 people, and I’d say it was probably at 75% capacity. So we got as close as we cared to to the stage (about 4 rows back), took our seats, and waited for the show to start. Now, all the concerts I’ve been to so far (save for the PT/Opeth show 2 years ago) are ones that appeal more towards people my age, so looking around I started to notice that for the first time I was actually in the minority as far as age groups go. Every once in awhile I’d see kids that couldn’t be more than 20, but on average I’d say people there were 30-40 years old. It’s not so much that it’s surprising- after all, Porcupine Tree’s sound tends to appeal more towards fans of 70’s prog (Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, etc) than to the typical teen fans of rock and metal- but seeing people at least the age of my own parents (who have mostly crap taste in music) at a loud, fairly energetic show was funny. Especially the guy we talked to behind us: He had a nine-year-old kid named Ian Anderson. Ahh, prog fans…

So the night started off with something completely unexpected: An opening act by the name of “Marjorie Fair”. In all of the shit I went through ordering tickets and even on the marquee outside (I’m pretty sure, at least) there was nothing regarding any sort of supporting band, but it turns out they did the two PT shows prior to this one as well. Odd… Anyways, their sound was kind of like a post-rock version of Radiohead, and I quite enjoyed it. Some of the sections of guitar distortion dragged a bit, but overall it was a good opener for PT. Plus, they had the most bizarre projection going on the monitor behind them (70’s film quality footage of squirrels, tall grass, and the sides of highways in the mountains, for example).

Onto the main attraction…

PT kicked it off with Open Car, one of my favorites off Deadwing. But to make it even better, they extended it by about a minute with a heavy, improv-sounding bit which kicked major ass. After that it was onto Blackest Eyes, which still sounds about 10x better live than it ever will on CD, and then back to Deadwing material with “Lazarus”. Lazarus and Mellotron Scratch were definitely my least favorite tracks of the night… Not to say they’re BAD songs- far from it- just that I would’ve rather heard Deadwing and Shallow instead.

Overall they performed an excellent mix of old and new material, though I’m really disappointed they didn’t play Buying New Soul, which they’d been doing quite a bit prior to this show. And speaking of B-sides, they did two from the Deadwing sessions, the first of which was an instrumental (“Mother and Child Divided”) a bit similar in style to Wedding Nails, and “So Called Friend”, which was equally good.

Aside from the extended version of Open Car, “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here” was one of my favorite moments of the night: It’s really something to behold live (and their screen projection during it was absolutely perfect). I guess it’s not too different from the album version, but it’s got such a great atmosphere to it that I know they’ll be playing it for years (and Wilson said himself that it was really growing on him). The other amazing moment was the first song after the encore: Radioactive Toy. Given that the album version was recorded back in ‘91 when PT consisted of Steven Wilson doing everything by himself, hearing it live with their full line-up was fucking incredible by comparison.

And of course “Trains” is always great, not to mention a perfect closer for the show.

As far as individual performances go: Wilson is an incredible vocalist, but he seems to be forfeiting a lot of his higher vocals to John Wesley (guitars/backing vocals) in favor of the style he started using on Deadwing. It was especially noticeable on “Don’t Hate Me”, though overall it was nothing too bad.

Given that this IS Porcupine Tree, everybody there put on a great performance. Colin (bass) had on his usual grin the whole time- as if life just doesn’t get any better for him, Wesley did all the backing vocals and guitarwork perfectly, and Richard Barbieri’s keyboard/synth job was outstanding. But the real standout of the night was Gavin Harrison, their drummer. I’d honestly put him up against Danny Carey (Tool) after seeing this show: he added so much more to every song than what you hear on the albums, that I probably spent half the time just staring at him in awe.

Anyways, here’s the full set-list:

1. Open Car
2. Blackest Eyes
3. Lazarus
4. Hatesong
5. Don’t Hate Me
6. Mother and Child Divided
7. Mellotron Scratch
8. So Called Friend
9. Arriving Somewhere But Not Here
10. Heart Attack In a Layby
11. Start of Something Beautiful
12. Halo
Encore
13. Radioactive Toy
14. Trains

After the show we stood around out front (they got everyone out as quick as possible basically) with about a dozen other people, waiting for our ride and hoping to catch the band since their bus was right in front of the theater. After about 15 minutes I notice that not 10 feet away from Jed and me is John Wesley signing autographs and chatting with the rest of the group of fans. I still have no idea where he came from…

Anyways, I got my copy of Deadwing signed and since I have no shame, I told him it was my birthday in a few days so it says “Happy 18th Chris!”. A bit ironic, since he doesn’t even play on the CD (a fact which Jed had no trouble pointing out every 20 minutes or so for the rest of the trip). What really blows is we thought we had driven the farthest to see them, but some older couple from NPR out of Missoula was in that group too and talked to Wesley first, so we kinda lost there. And Wesley claimed at one point that “the rest of the guys are honestly just shy”, but I’m starting to think they use him as a diversion because as we were standing there talking to him I saw Wilson and the rest of the band rushing into the bus (we stood facing the driver’s side so the bus doors were on the OTHER side, which was wonderfully convenient for them). Ah well, he was a great guy and I’m happy I got to meet him.

As for pictures… The Moore Theater not only says on their website “no cameras allowed”, but they actually had somebody going down the line outside before the show with a sign that said the same thing. Oooh, but what do I see as soon as PT starts playing? People using camera phones to take pictures, and with a security guard not 10 feet away. I’m seriously considering buying one just for that purpose, because driving 500 miles to see one of my favorite bands and NOT getting to take pictures is fucking ridiculous.

So my only big complaints (aside from the above) were that the overall sound pitch during the show was often too high, and Wesley’s backing vocals on the first few songs were way too loud. But this is compared to their performance at The Showbox 2 years ago, which was perfect in just about every way.

All in all, it was a great show and I’m damn glad I made the trip to see it. Hopefully I can do it again when they come back next year. And who knows, maybe I’ll take that one bassist kid with me…

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