Fear of a Blank Planet

Porcupine Tree are not your everyday band. Initially in about 1987 it was just more or less Steven Wilson's brainchild, an imaginary legendary progressive rock band for which he created an equally imaginary back catalogue, but people's interest was sparked when they got their hands on the cassettes Wilson had recorded containing this material, and so he reissued several of these mock historical recordings and a compilation.

Whilst the band started out mostly being influenced by old psychedelic bands, Porcupine Tree started exploring more and more different genres, attracting fans from all these sub-genres as well. Still, though Wilson declines Porcupine Tree being a progressive rockband (I think I've heard that before somewhere else) it is obvious the sounds the band produced are immensely layered, and the songs structured containing segues.

Only just having released their latest album, Fear of a Blank Planet a tour was in order, and Antwerp was the place to be for Belgian fans. As soon as they got on stage an impressive wall of sound was created, and most shocking videos were played to illustrate the songs, bringing much of an extra atmosphere to the gig. It was rather obvious these videos were filmed so as to make sure nobody would feel neutral about these. Children taking pills, shooting themselves with guns, referring to a numb society in which kids of today live. It's a shame it's hard to divide one's attention between the actual gig and the videos so you do miss out on certain details sometimes.

After only two songs, Wilson made clear the gig was not just a regular one, but one of the few (apparently) to feature a complete live rendition of the album, followed by a set of classic songs from the back catalogue. Thus, they managed to even increase the impressive sounds from the album, and bring more of a background to it, the concept and the story behind it.

Obviously both Wilson and the rest of his group members are highly talented musicians, so there was no lack of technique anywhere, no flaws at all. The entire gig was just perfectly executed. Perhaps even more because of that it was a bit of a shame their stage presence was a bit static, probably because of which the audience was a bit too disciplined, hardly moving along at all.

That being the only downside of the show, I was most happy to have gone to see them and wouldn't mind to go out to catch a gig of theirs again!