Thursday, March 28, 2024

Live Review: Steven Wilson @ Hammersmith Apollo

Calming, yet desolate urban scenes of high-rise apartment blocks and the odd green-space provide the backdrop to the intro. Arriving on stage to a raucous applause, each musician takes their station for a smooth transition to opening track, ‘First Regret.’ Initially too bass-heavy, the sound is quickly rectified in time for the first drop that comes in ‘3 Years Older.’ The power of the sound —to physically feel the impact of this track that I love so well— sends shivers up my spine; the recordings are amazing, of course, but to be enveloped by the melodies and harmonies is completely different experience: When the music dies down to softly back Steven Wilson’s first words, the impact is so intense, it literally takes my breath away and I have to force myself to breathe deeper; the first time the harmonies are introduced, and I’m not afraid to admit it, I feel myself welling up as they wash through me. Yes, I am a huge fan, and I knew it would be good but, no, I had no idea it would be this good. I struggled to maintain my composure on more than one occasion during 3 Years Older’; it’s rare I experience anything that moves me in this way.

Steven Wilson
Photo Credit: Caroline Traitler

Not more than fifteen minutes into the set, I already knew that I was witnessing a musical performance on a completely different level. The live sound is as true to the recordings as I suspect it is possible to get. “So why not just stay at home and listen to the recordings,” you might ask. The reason is this: to not just hear the music, but to feel it — to physically feel it.

With no support acts, the evening was split into two parts. The first part was the performance, in its entirety, of Steven’s fourth (solo) studio album, Hand. Cannot. Erase.. Aside from the initial settling of levels, from start to finish, the sound and performance was awe-inspiring; the soft melodies, spoken vocals and rumbling, synthy sound of the drums on ‘Perfect Life‘; the harsh, crunchy riffing, driving bass and funk-laden keys on ‘Home Invasion‘; the dreamy ebb and flow of ‘Regret #9‘. Ninet Tayeb appeared in person for her parts in ‘Routine‘ and ‘Ancestral,’ adding yet another incredible element in delivering a most authentic live album experience.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this was a clinical performance; the passion, energy and ease with which the band performed, coupled with Steven’s warmth when interacting with the audience, drew us closer and created a remarkable sense of intimacy considering the size of the venue; the lighting and video imagery added visually artistic elements to the performance, further enhancing the live experience.

Opening the second part of the performance, ‘Drag Ropes,’ —a product of Storm Corrosion, Steven’s collaboration with Opeth‘s Mikael Åkerfeldt— was performed to a shadow puppet animation that depicted a rather tragic story; the lighting, smoke, video and music all came together to create a truly striking experience and, much to my delight, we got to hear ‘Open Car,‘ one of my all-time favourite Porcupine Tree tracks from Deadwing (2005).

Introducing, ‘My Book of Regrets,‘ the first of three tracks from recently released album, 4 1/2 (2016), Wilson jokes about ‘left-overs,’ explaining that he likes to have themes and that these are “just songs not in context” of the previous release. The track kicks perfectly, although I felt the bass could have cut through a bit more. I wasn’t sure if the audience were just awestruck, or that they had not had enough time to absorb the new material fully, but I seemed to be the only person nodding along, however, after hearing people shouting between strums halfway through the track, I discovered that some members of the audience know it well enough.

We were then treated to a stunning audio-visual work-of-art in a rendition of ‘Index‘ from his 2011 release, Grace for Drowning; the drop was staggeringly powerful, making this the only song of the night that felt truly exaggerated (in the most positive way) in its use of the audial dynamics afforded by live performance when compared to the studio recording.

Steven Wilson
Photo Credit: Caroline Traitler

Taking a moment to introduce ‘Lazarus,’ Wilson talks about the “shitty few months” that has befallen the music world, mentioning a few events in particular: The attacks in Paris, Lemmy, and, most recently, Bowie. The latter being particularly poignant for him, seeing it as the “closing of the chapter of experimental and innovative music being in the mainstream,” citing in particular Bowie & Prince. He sees ‘Lazarus‘ as a fitting nod to Bowie, highlighting Bowie’s most recent release of the same name and the fact that ‘Lazarus‘ is based around a character called David; it’s another of the more iconic tracks from the Porcupine Tree days, from the 2002 album, In Absentia.

We got to hear ‘Don’t Hate Me‘ as Steven had intended it: as a duet. The track, having been recorded as such and featuring on 4 1/2, was performed with well-choreographed lighting to accentuate the transitions between Steven and Ninet. At times, coupled with the feel of the music, the visuals that accompanied the track brought to mind one of my most beloved fusions of music and video: Pink Floyd’s Live in Pompeii.

A white sheet dropped as a veil in front of the stage, as the bass groove kicked in for ‘Vermillioncore.’ The visual performance was taken up yet another level; footage in the foreground, projected onto the veil, danced and intermingled with images on the back screen; the lighting weaved around and through them both; before the full band drops in to a heavy groove of the main hook of the track, the solo bass dons distortion for an tastefully overt use of live stereo sound to mirror the recording. In terms of ‘a show,’ this track was one of the highlights of the performance, being one of the most visually, artistically stunning performances I’ve ever seen.

Creative use of lighting and shadow on the screen is maintained for a huge finish on ‘Sleep Together,’ from Porcupine Tree release Fear of a Blank Planet (2007). Of course, given the full standing ovation —perhaps even before that— we knew there would be an encore. He gives a rendition of one of his favourite songs ever, Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, calling for audience participation – as if he needed to!
Asking everyone to stand for ‘The Sound of Muzak‘, he calls once more for audience involvement, joking about embarrassing moments of asking people to sing, only to be greeted, at the crucial moment, by silence; he did not leave this “home town show” disappointed.

Using the word ‘melancholy’ more than once during the performance, it was perhaps fitting to end on a beautiful track that certainly leans on the heavier side of melancholy: ‘The Raven That Refused To Sing.‘ With another bespoke animation to accompany the music, I was so captivated and absorbed in the experience that, at times, I completely forgot that one of my favourite artists was providing the live sound track.

Despite my unanswered pleas to entrepreneur and philanthropist, Duncan Bannatyne, OBE, to give his thoughts on the performance in 140 characters or less, to do so would be an injustice to the experience.

An evening with Steven Wilson, is not one soon forgot.

That’s what she said.

Marcus L
Marcus L
Writer and sub-editor. Music fan with not enough time. Loves Megadeth, Porcupine Tree, Textures, and ZOAX. Join me on Twitter @infernal_wisdom

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