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From left-to-right: Brett, Julie, Suzanne, Steve, Lyne, Steve, Phil, Tony, Theresa, Annette, Sean, Rea and Alex

L-to-R, Back Row: Tony, Phil, Suzanne, Brett Front Row: Sean, Alex

This past Friday I had the most incredible concert experience of my entire life seeing Porcupine Tree at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco. Hands down, it was the best concert I have ever been to. The reasons for this are multiple. First of all, Porcupine Tree consists of musicians with incredible talent, their songs are all interesting lyrically and musically, and they just plain kick major ass. Second, my vantage point for this show was front and center, right in front of the stage, a mere 3 feet (or less) from Steven Wilson’s mic stand. And third, although most definitely not last, being there with my friends who were enjoying the show as much as I was greatly enriched the entire experience.

Friends came from all over to meet-up for this particular show. Texas, Missouri, and distant parts of California were represented in my group of friends. We arranged a meet-up before the show at a nearby Irish pub – 14 people in all! My only regret about that was my pre-concert nerves distracted me from visiting with everyone there at that time. It was also very loud, so conversation required some shouting. Anyway, we then all filed over to the Warfield where there were several confusing lines already formed, each with different purpose. I had fan club tickets which required picking them up from a special section of will call. Finally, we received our special bright orange wrist bands that said “Porcupine Tree The Incident” on them, and enabled us early entry into the venue. We were definitely bad-ass wearing those! When we first arrived and saw the long lines, I thought my hopes of getting anywhere near the stage were dashed. Turns out – most of the people who went in before us were wasting time at the merchandise counter, or just milling about, and thus we were able to score our excellent location right in front of the stage! The only person closer to the stage than me was a little eleven-year-old girl who was there with her father. Perfect! An unobstructed view!

Well, by this time, it was not yet 8 o’clock and the warm-up act, That One Guy, was to start at 9. Instead of standing for all that time, we just sat on the floor, posting on Facebook. It helped the time to pass a little faster, but we were all just so psyched for the show to begin so time did not fly! That One Guy stared his set a little early, which was great, because we figured the sooner he started, the sooner he’d finish and we’d get to the Main Event! He was interesting – definitely unique, but honestly, I was there to see Porcupine Tree.

Finally, near 10 o’clock, Porcupine Tree took the stage and the show began. The first set consisted of the 55-minute opus from their new album of the same name, The Incident, which is really a song-cycle of 14 separate songs. Each song pretty much required the use of a different guitar from the previous one, and Steven Wilson also switched between playing acoustic to electric within the same song, as well as using a small piano there to the left (my left) of his usual center-stage position. Every part of The Incident was fantastic. Just outstanding! For the first song, Occam’s Razor, Steven played his beautiful green PRS Custom 22. He probably used that particular guitar the most throughout the concert, with his acoustic Babicz six-string the second-most frequently used guitar. (of note, my close vantage point allowed me to see how well-used that guitar is! He has played the hell out of it – but it sounded fantastic!) Although I loved every second of it, the stand-out songs of The Incident included: Drawing The Line where Steven played a trippy guitar that had a video screen inside behind the strings! Seriously bad-ass, though, it looked like it weighed a ton. Probably why he only used it for one song. Naturally, Time Flies was incredible. SW started out with the Babicz and then switched to a PRS for the solo, which was un-fucking-believable! That solo might have been the high point of the show, if the entire show wasn’t the high-point in itself! Then the trilogy of Octane Twisted, The Seance, and Circle of Manias proceeded to blow our socks off. This part of The Incident is seriously heavy and I do remember SW was playing a matte-finish down-tuned PRS SC for Circle of Manias. It was insane!! The Incident finished with I Drive The Hearse, which is an epic ballad sort of song – extremely dark and beautiful.

After a ten minute break (exactly 10 minutes – it was marked off with a countdown clock projected behind the screen) the band came back out for set two, which consisted of:

Start of Something Beautiful
Buying New Soul
Anesthetize (Extract)
Lazarus
Strip the Soul/.3
Bonnie the Cat
—–Encore—–
Mother and Child Divided
Trains

I was delighted they played Buying New Soul! Such an outstanding song. Strip the Soul was another one I was particularly happy they played. It was the first Porcupine Tree song that I got into years before I really got into the band. It is a very heavy song. Of course, Anesthetize was awesome. Everyone was head-banging to that one, myself included, and my neck still hurts. Bonnie The Cat was insane! It is one of the darker tunes (if that makes sense) on the second disk of The Incident. Really fantastic. Gavin was a drumming madman during this song! Mother and Child Divided was cool to see performed live – Steven literally was hammering on the tremolo with his fist during this one. I was sad when I saw him come out with the acoustic at the end, knowing it would be Trains and that would be the last song. Of course, Trains was epic, and always a fan favorite. It was amusing when he deliberately delayed singing the last part of the song and the over-eager crowd jumped in ahead of him. He cracked one of his rare smiles with that, and it was delightful.

Now comes the real review. What everyone really wants to know. What was my impression of Steven Wilson in the flesh, performing just 6 feet away from me? Well. I’m not sure where to start. (heh) He was pretty much what I looked at the entire show, although I did make eye contact with all the other band members (except for keyboardist Richard Barbieri, whom was obstructed from my view by Steven’s piano, but I did manage to be able to shake his hand and thank him after the show when we saw him as we were leaving the venue, which was very special!), so I had a good two hours to study the man. SW is very stoic on stage. He pretty much looks straight out and maintains a serious face throughout, eyes often closed. There were a few times I saw him smile – once when someone tossed rose petals onstage and again when he teased the crowd during Trains. A great deal of the time, all I could see was his silhouette as the stage lights were right behind him from my point of reference, but it was a glorious silhouette of silky (I’m assuming) flying hair on a guitar wielding rock god! From my vantage, I could see every chord change, every note struck – everything! I could even hear the sound of the pick on the strings, un-amplified, as he was just right there in front of me. The only disappointing thing from where I was is that I heard the audiences’ voices more than his, as his voice was amplified farther out into the venue. I could hear his voice, but it was, at times, drowned out by the crowd singing along. Of course, I was singing along, as well, so I was also part of the problem, but only for the eleven-year-old girl in front of me.

Steven Wilson does have lovely feet, although, some of his toenails were a little long, but at least they appeared to be clean. (He does not wear shoes during performances. It is his thing. Makes operating all his pedals and effects switches, of which there are many, easier, or so he says.) His arm hair was very fine and sparse, again, a detail made easy to notice because of the illumination from behind him. He hadn’t shaved since before the Portland show, as he had a bit more beard growth since the video of him smashing up an iPod was taken. The way he moves onstage is extremely captivating. From the way he often lifts his guitar into a flat position as if to admire its beauty (he does this a lot) to how he holds the pick between his two fingers as he points out into the crowd during songs to how he kicks his leg then head-bangs during the heavy parts. Just a spectacle and a delight to watch. I would have liked a little more banter with the crowd – he was all business – however, my great expectations about him, the band and the concert were all exceeded by several orders of magnitude.

There were many markers during their show and time definitely flew by. The good news is not only is there a new concert DVD to be released next spring, but there will definitely be a second leg to this tour. Thus, I know for certain that I will see Porcupine Tree at least one more time possibly next year as I intend to make trips out to other parts of the country to meet up with my PT Peeps to further enjoy this great band.

Pictured left to right: Tony, Alex, Rae, Theresa, Phil, Suzanne, Annette, Sean, Julie, Brett, Lyne, Troy and Steve. Not pictured, Steve Markkanen.

This is almost the perspective I had, although I was standing more directly in front of the mic stand.

This was almost my exact perspective. Pretty close, huh?

PORCUPINE TREE – TIME FLIES – HD VERSION from GRANT WAKEFIELD on Vimeo.