Porcupine Tree

Though a rainy Saturday night and a very comfortable couch were very much beckoning me to stay indoors, it was with reluctance, nay ambivalence, that I dragged myself to Sydney's Enmore Theatre to see English prog-rockers Porcupine Tree on their current Australian tour.

I had witnessed first-hand the dedication of the fans and the excitement that the announcement of the tour had brought, but having had little to no exposure to the band myself, I literally had no idea what to expect. With this leaving me with no expectations, it was with genuine surprise and delight that both the band and the show blew me away.

I was instantly enamoured by the band when, with a couple of minutes to go before the show, a voice instructed the crowd that no recording devices were to be used during the performance, including digital cameras and mobile phones.

There's nothing worse than the new and ever-growing phenomenon of watching a band through a domino-trail of other people's phone and camera screens, and the band certainly won my respect with this polite and reasoned request. Moments later, the band took the stage, and the performance that unfolded only served to cement that respect.

Opening with 'Occam's Razor' from the new album The Incident, the band were tight, the crowd was pumped, and coupled with dazzling lights, the show was off to a killer start. The band’s lead, Steven Wilson, then greeted the crowd and explained the format – one single piece of music now, followed by an interval, and then another mini-set; a twist on the norm, to say the least. And then began perhaps the most breathtaking performance I have witnessed – at least in recent times.

A projection screen at the rear of the stage came to life and for the next hour the band played through their newest album 'The Incident', with the pieces loosely linked by lilting melodies – a flitting of keyboard keys, the brushing of a snare, a walking bass line, yet somehow tethering the pieces together into one, beautiful medley.

The projector teased the crowd – the images meandering from stark, apocalyptic charcoal scrawls, through glossy robotic animation, to landscape images and back to spiralling lights – there was not a moment when the trance was broken, when the audience was given pause to reflect on the visual cacophony, until, of course, the trance WAS broken, by the piece drawing to a close, the screen dimming to black, and the disappointment in the crowd as that veil of fantasy lifted was palpable.

A countdown clock appeared, giving us ten excruciating minutes to wait for more, and when the band finally reclaimed the stage it was a relief. Picking up the pace, the band worked their way through old and new – opening with 'The Start of Something Beautiful' (new), followed by a set including 'Russian On Ice' (old).

A very old song from circa 1995 drew awestruck breaths from the die-hard fans, while the more recent, but clearly equally loved tracks brought cheers of excitement, and others, overlooked, still were shouted out as plaintive request. Wilson, true to his rumoured surly form, advised the crowd that deviation from the set-list was not going to happen, but this only served to draw more requests with even more fervour.

As the set drew to a close, and the crowd pulled away sated, it seemed like there was no need for an encore - but there were certainly fans gluttonously craving more, screaming for the band to come back, to give one more morsel. And so they did, and graced the crowd with 'The Sound of Muzak', and then were told by the stage crew they had two minutes left.

Over two minutes of too-ing and fro-ing later, the crowd having bayed for drummer Gavin Harrison to make up this meager remainder by treating us to a drum solo, the band must have done some backstage negotiating, because much to the crowd's delight, they delivered a killer version of 'Trains' (now this, THIS I had been well prepared for) - and the crowd in unison joined in. It was the perfect end to what could only be described as the perfect set, by a band who really do deserve to be much better known than they are.

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