Steven Wilson Live at Newcastle City Hall

On Friday 18 October, I set off for the Newcastle City Hall with fairly mixed feelings as I was attending this concert at the expense of seeing These New Puritans who were playing just across the River Tyne at The Sage, Gateshead. Two of my favourite finds this year, and they both have to be playing in my area on the same night. That's what we call sod's law in these parts.

Anyway the tickets for Steven Wilson were obtained long before I knew anything about These New Puritans, so off I went looking forward to seeing live performances of songs from one of the best albums of the year, 'The Raven That Refused To Sing... and Other Stories'. I was not to be disappointed as the band played almost everything from that album. (Only 'Pin Drop' was omitted).

It is always something of a thrill entering the City Hall as it was one of the first major venues I ever attended back when I was a slip of a lad. I have lost count of the number of times I have been there but regrettably these days visits are something of a rare occurrence simply because they tend to feature very few artists that interest me.

Soon after taking our seats, a film was projected onto the rear curtain and as the main character of the film (a street busker) strummed his guitar, the sound was replaced by that of Wilson himself strumming his own acoustic guitar and ambling barefoot onto the stage.

He was eventually joined by the other five members of his band and soon they were pumping out the opening bass riff of 'Luminol' which opens the aforementioned album.

The recent songs were broken up by a couple from Wilson's previous album, 'Grace For Drowning' as well as a brand new song which is currently named 'Soundtrack to Decline' but the title like the song was being road tested and is therefore subject to change.

Throughout I was struck by the quality of the musicianship as the band successfully recreated the complex rhythms produced on record. In this respect I was put in mind of when I went to see King Crimson, Genesis and Yes in the early 1970's and the use of film and projected images also recalled the visual attributes of the aforementioned master of prog-rock.

After a little over two hours, the band ended with an encore of 'Radioactive Toy' from the first Porcupine Tree album and the band took their bows and left, leaving us to take one more look around this wonderful venue and venture out into the night.

The full setlist consisted of:

Trains
Luminol
Postcard
The Holy drinker
Drive Home
Soundtrack to Decline
The Watchmaker
Index
Sectarian
Harmony Korine
Raider 2
The Raven That refused To Sing
Radioactive Toy