OFF: Porcupine Tree at Shepherd's Bush Empire

[Jon Jarrett]

On Sat, 12 May 2001, Nick Medford wrote:

> Anyone else go to this? I know a number of boc-l'ers who were musing on
> the idea of going, don't know if anyone did.

        I did mean to but in the end there wasn't the money; I'd already
had to go to London once that week and I don't make that much at the
moment. Ah well.

> Got there rather late, caught the end of the support band's set (who were
> they?) which closed with a faithful-but-dull cover of "Comfortably Numb"-
> hardly an adventurous choice in this setting.

        Well, apart from the risk of breathing the name Pink Floyd
anywhere near Steven Wilson :-)

> Seemed like a long wait for PT, I must give a mention to the extremely
> minimalist hypnotic electro played through the PA - very effective, no idea
> what it was. Finally Wilson and co. take the stage, I won't attempt to list
> the whole set as much of it was unfamiliar to me, but overall impressions:
> the loud instrumental passages are always good and sometimes quite brilliant:
> the band play with tremendous power and- praise be!- manage to do this
> without sacrificing clarity of sound. Aside from SW's excellent, varied lead
> guitar work, I was particularly impressed by the bassist who really motored
> some of the trancier passages along, and whenever the band when into
> psychedelic freakout mode they showed great use of rhythm.

        Colin Edwin really shows himself well live. Steve's bass-playing
isn't as interesting but it's what's used to write the songs. `The Sky
Moves Sideways' particularly has a lot more life to it live because of
this. Has anyone investigated Colin's side project The Ex-Wise Heads?

> I'm still unconvinced by the lighter side of PT's music: in particular, an
> "acoustic interlude" where they played "Pure Narcotic" and one other left
> me pretty cold. I dunno: with that sugar-coated, West Coast-style stuff, I
> can appreciate the skill and the way the songs are crafted, but it just does
> nothing for me. In addition, Wilson isn't quite the songwriter he perhaps
> imagines himself to be: after all, if you want to make it as a bard of angst,
> there's some pretty tough competition to live up to. His lyrics aren't _bad_
> exactly, but feel predictable, rarely inspired.

        Ach, they did this sort of singles hour bit the last time I saw
them. Porcupine Tree's singles, bar the last two which were OK, are
generally nothing special. Sticking them all together in the set while
Steven jangles away on an acosutic and Colin and Richard stand with their
arms folded only goes to emphasise this to my way of thinking, I wish
they'd stop. In fact I wish he'd stop writing them and get back to the
exploratory psych. But enough of that. I do rather like _Lightbulb Sun_,
more so than _Stupid Dream_.

> But the weaker moments were far outweighed by the good-to-great: a
> pounding "Up The Downstair" with irresistible rolling bassline,  the
> extarordinary guitar meltdown of "Russia On Ice", and a blistering extended
> "Signify" were some of the highlights. Best of all was the remarkable
> rendition of "Voyage 34" - faster and rockier than the original and totally
> hypnotic.
>
> So a fine gig overall, apparently it was being recorded for a live album so
> expect that to be the next PT release.

        Hmph. I'd rather more studio material first. I suppose three
albums would be enough for some people but the coverage will be too
similar to _Coma Divine_ I reckon.

> One thing that struck me was that they do inhabit a world closer to the
> mainstream than most other bands I would go and see. SW had a pop at
> boy-bands, Britney Spears et al by way of introducing "Hate Song", and
> while one couldn't argue with what he said, it struck me that one would
> never hear Dave Brock bothering to make such obvious observations:
> Hawkwind aren't even in the same cosmos as chart-fodder, it just wouldn't
> be relevant. Still the crowd (average age rather less than at a HW gig!)
> cheered anyway.

        He's never hidden that he'd like to make money from music. I guess
he figures these are the people stopping him doing it... Yours,
                                                                Jon

--
       Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)     jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "There is a certain pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know"