"Djalma with ticket signed by Wes"
The Incident in Charlotte
The air was right for the performance of the year in Charlotte, NC at Amos's Southend. A small club but a fun place to see a show just the same. As usual we went to the venue 2hrs prior to doors. Upon arrival we discovered there were several die hard Porcupine Tree fans that had the same idea as us. There was a couple who traveled all the way from Boston to see the show, a girl with Christian Dior glasses who had been there since 1pm, and another fan who claimed to have been from Philadelphia was there hoping for a pre show glimpse of the band.
Myself I brought the fan that traveled the furthest to see Porcupine Tree. Djalma came all the way from Sao Paulo, Brasil. He had planned to come mid summer for a visit but since this concert was announced for the end of April he decided that it was in his best interest to arrive in time to see this tour.
We were all huge fans standing at the door ears pressed against the metal to hear our favorite band doing the sound check. What a great sound it was coming through the doorway. Gavin was pounding out the heavy beats to the center section of Anesthetize, Steven was hitting the heavy chords, and the band sounded tighter than ever. Our excitement increased as we heard them playing a few short samples from the night’s song list.
Amos's Southend may be a small little dive of a club but one thing for sure is they know how to process the people and get them into the venue in a quick and easy fashion. The residents of a Blank Planet club were most happy about the fact they were going to let them in 15mins prior to the rest of us. Fair enough for those who paid that extra fee for this added perk.
Flash forward to the gig. The opening act was very good and Damon Fox of BigElf was enjoyable to watch with his top hat and keyboard antics. I really enjoyed seeing them play live. A mixture of ELP, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and early Deep Purple was their sound. Damon had some major keyboards on both sides of him and he played them much in the same fashion as Rick Wakeman. Their sound was good but at times a bit loud and distorted. However the band really did a nice set and was complimentary to the upcoming Porcupine Tree set.
After a brief set change “The Tree” took the stage at just after 9pm.
Prior to their appearance was a recorded announcement to please refrain from taking any photos or recordings of any kind. Cell phones, iPhones or Blackberry photos included. If you are caught you will be asked to leave the venue. Bummer for me I just got a little point and shoot to catch a few photos of the show. However I decided it best not to be asked to leave so I avoided an incident and watched "The Incident" in its entirety.
The boys entered the stage and from the moment they did you could feel the energy in the air. Steven greeted the audience letting us all know how much he has enjoyed our town. He also commented that we should feel free to hoop and holler with excitement however please save it for the parts where the band is rocking out. Fair enough I would say.....and the band begins....
They played the Incident in its entirety the full 55mins of Disc 1 which is the formal album. I would have to say that I liked seeing it performed in full live. It gave the album a new dimension,one that I had not gotten from listening to it before. For me this album has a lot of atmospheric elements, experimental sounds and some amazing controlled cacophonic parts that really come together during the live experience. Both Richard & Wes were prominent in the mix and I enjoyed this a great deal. I had a hard time hearing Richard's keys before on the “Fear of a Blank Planet” tour in Raleigh a few years back.
Steven was in full force playing his wild disconnected chords, heavy rhythms and some really incredible emotive lead guitar as well. He would often grab an acoustic to fill in the softer parts and Wes would move from supportive role to lead guitar at that point. Steven also did some amazing work on the keyboards too. I loved the keyboard he had on stage this tour. It reminded me of an old wooden roll top desk found in my grandmothers’ living room, converted into a keyboard stand.
For me the cornerstone of The Incident was the song Time Flies. The song seems to pay homage to the music we grew up listening to like Hendrix and The Pink Floyd. The song took on a beautiful visual and aural dimension live even with the makeshift tiny white sheet they had to use for the projections, due to the stage being so small. They made due with the limited space Amos's had to offer them. Both Colin and Gavin were hidden behind the PA system speakers from our balcony view.
After they finished the Incident portion of the show they took a 10min break which was timed by red LED countdown clock on the screen.
The band took the stage and with The Start of Something Beautiful they tore into the second set. I really enjoyed this song. Then they went into Russia On Ice which has some amazing Barbieri synthesizer going on. Both he and Wes were laying down the layers of sound on this one which made it quite beautiful. I am so glad they opted to keep that in this set list. I know they are changing around the second set to keep it fresh for each performance.
The next song was a bombastic version of the center section of Anesthetize! I turned to my friend from Brasil and stated "This is what I saw on the last tour!" Gavin was blasting out the beats on his drums and the band was really cranking at this point. Steven was playing a lot more lead guitar than I saw him play on the Fear of a Blank Planet tour. I was really amazed by how tight the band was this time around. They were tight before but seemed even tighter now.
Next Steven announced they would be playing an old song that was not from any formal album. Stars Die was wonderful.....I hope that those of you who see this tour get to see that played live. From there he went into the song Normal and then Strip the Soul. I love this song it's so heavy and Steven really tore it up on this one.
The final song was Bonnie the Cat which comes from Disc 2 of The Incident. A very cool song, and again it has some very strange parts to it but this came across well in the live setting. Steven thanked us for coming out to make their first time in Charlotte a memorable one. The place was quite full and I am sure was close to the 1100 person capacity. He said they would be back to Charlotte again and next time with the full visual production. So maybe they will play the Fillmore next time round. It is a good bit bigger than Amos's and would lend itself better to their stage shows.
I am not sure where this actually happened but at one point Colin came over to Steven with the vacuum cleaner and started to vac his feet as he played. It might have been during the Encore portion of the gig. They did play two songs "The Sound of Muzak" & Trains. I know there are a lot of long time fans who have seen the band play Trains one too many times. But for my friend who came all the way from Brazil to see the band had never heard it live and they did a great version of it too. I think it was on Trains that Steven even forgot the lyrics for a moment. This was great because no one is perfect and even the fantastic Mr. Wilson is known to goof up. But he laughed it off and got back into the groove quickly.
After the show we waited out by the bus and eventually Wes came out to greet and sign some items. I know a performance as heavy as this might be hard and need decompression time afterwards so I was not expecting to see Steven. It was nice that Wes did come out though. He is so gracious and such a friendly person. Always takes time to make each fan feel as if he knows them. He posed for a photo with both me and my friend from Brazil. Wes also commented that he had been to Brasil twice himself and it was beautiful. This gave my friend hope that maybe one day Porcupine Tree would play in his homeland. I think they might be as shocked as RUSH was to see how many fans they have there.
Thanks to the Tree for the Incident! You made my day, my week, my month & my year by coming to Charlotte! Also a shout out to you all by Djalma from Brazil he says it was one of the highlights of his life!
Peace & Music in 2010!
Michael
