Porcupine Tree Live at The Grove of Anaheim

Okay, this is a bit late, but… well, I’ve been busy.

I have only listened to the latest Porcupine Tree CD, Deadwing. So for me, much of the music was new. But that didn’t matter. In one of those rare evenings, I found that I loved everything they played. PT is where I believe rock was heading before bands got greedy and/or pretentious (greedy and pretentious at the same time… ouch), and then were deserted by both radio and the fans. In the 70’s this band would have been big. Not that this is a 70’s sound… hmmmm, well maybe. The concept (not the sound) is very similar to the first couple of Kansas CDs: Tight sound, great leads, good melodies, complex but assessable music. The sound is a little bit metal, a little bit rock and roll and a lot of… Ambrosia. Or maybe Toy Matinee. That’s the sound the vocals reminded me of. They weren’t the hard intense metal vocals. That combined with superior songwriting, made it easy to just love everything they played. Steven Wilson (lead singer and main lead guitar) is one talented guy. The rest of the members of the band are no slouches either; highlighted by the intense and tight drumming (perfect mic setup according to my audiophile friend Kim) which drove the band. They are coming back in October and I plan on being there.

There was a lot of joking going around during Robert Fripp’s show. This is because what he does best is create soundscapes. And, that is all he did that night. So, near the end of the first piece, some guy turns around and says to us, “this next part is great”. Of course no one has a clue what the next part is, but it isn’t much different from what he has been playing; at least on the surface (more on that in a minute). Finally Kim turns to the guy sitting next to us and said, “Well, what did you expect” and he said, “Exactly this”. But for those who really listened, each song had a feel and a mood. I was able to visualize possible movies that this would have been the soundtrack to. The first piece was dark and scary. It was like a scene where a person was walking through the house and the killer was behind one of the doors. The tension and anticipation could be heard in the music. Maybe not something to thrill fans with, but still very interesting. The other interesting aspect to his show was that he had apparently split his guitar pickups into two sections sending each to a different box, allowing him to create multiple types of sounds at the same time. When you then layer it using loops, it becomes very impressive. 40 minutes of that was quiet enough though.

I am playing a few songs from Porcupine Tree's, "Deadwing" on The Promise. Check it out.