I went to see Porcupine Tree at Cambridge Junction last night for their warm up gig for the upcoming tour. There was no support act and so it was a real treat to hear them play for 2 whole hours.
The first hour was entirely new stuff. SW apologised before playing that it was the first time they had played the tracks at a gig and thus might sound a bit amateurish, it certainly didnt show. The new stuff is awesome. Dark, quite a lot heavier (apart from one track which was acoustic based), very atmospheric and songs at least 8 mins long. In fact, the best song clocked in at 17 minutes. SW has started to accompany Richard on the synths for a few of the new ones and it adds more texture and depth to their sound. Every new song was celebrated with a roar from the crowd that im not used to hearing at a PT gig, i think people were quite blown away, even the old rockers in the audience.
One thing i noticed was that SW was totally rocking out to a lot of the new stuff, i kind of got the impression he was trying to get the crowd moving about a bit. I got the feeling that a lot of people wanted to, but didn't feel like the "right thing to do" at a PT gig.
After a 5 min break they were back for some familiar tracks, from what i can remember they played:
Open Car/Sound of Muzak/Buying New Soul/Arriving Somewhere But Not Here/Mother And Child Divided/.3/Start of Something Beautiful/Trains/
Encore: Halo/Blackest Eyes
Open Car and .3 were my fav tracks that night...I even enjoyed them more than Trains, which i didn't think was possible.
I would encourage anyone to go and see them on this tour, they are getting better and better live. I took two mates along who were not familiar with any of their stuff and they were extremely impressed.
The first hour was entirely new stuff. SW apologised before playing that it was the first time they had played the tracks at a gig and thus might sound a bit amateurish, it certainly didnt show. The new stuff is awesome. Dark, quite a lot heavier (apart from one track which was acoustic based), very atmospheric and songs at least 8 mins long. In fact, the best song clocked in at 17 minutes. SW has started to accompany Richard on the synths for a few of the new ones and it adds more texture and depth to their sound. Every new song was celebrated with a roar from the crowd that im not used to hearing at a PT gig, i think people were quite blown away, even the old rockers in the audience.
One thing i noticed was that SW was totally rocking out to a lot of the new stuff, i kind of got the impression he was trying to get the crowd moving about a bit. I got the feeling that a lot of people wanted to, but didn't feel like the "right thing to do" at a PT gig.
After a 5 min break they were back for some familiar tracks, from what i can remember they played:
Open Car/Sound of Muzak/Buying New Soul/Arriving Somewhere But Not Here/Mother And Child Divided/.3/Start of Something Beautiful/Trains/
Encore: Halo/Blackest Eyes
Open Car and .3 were my fav tracks that night...I even enjoyed them more than Trains, which i didn't think was possible.
I would encourage anyone to go and see them on this tour, they are getting better and better live. I took two mates along who were not familiar with any of their stuff and they were extremely impressed.
ish to me
