Steven Wilson World Tour 2013

Steven Wilson ‘The Raven That Refused to Sing’ Tour 2013

Date: 20 October 2013

Location: Royal Albert Hall, London

Support: n/a (there’s never support at concerts I go to! not sure why…)

Special guests: n/a

Something always goes wrong when I try to go to a concert. Typically this involves large amounts of traffic and/or an inability to find the venue, and consequently arriving any time between five minutes before the band are due on stage and fifteen minutes after. So you can imagine my concern when I arrived at the Royal Albert Hall with almost an hour to go until Steven Wilson started playing. Surely, surely, the worrying lack of problems so far in the night meant we were pretty much guaranteed to have a power outing or a crucial band member suddenly taken ill? But somehow, amazingly, everything managed to happen according to plan. I even managed to buy a glow-in-the-dark T-shirt with the Raven cover art on.

Essentially, this night was particularly important to me because Steven Wilson is someone who I could never forgive myself if I passed up the opportunity to see. (This has been something I’ve had in mind ever since I passed up the chance to see Ian Anderson play Thick as a Brick a couple of years back, and regretted it ever since.) So I went, even though I was really tired and it was the night before I was due to go away.

And at first, honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d made the right decision. The concert opened with a twenty-minute video that consisted mostly of a camera pointed at a single street in London, monitoring the dull occurrences (staged or otherwise) that took place there in a typical day. Eventually, a busker (maybe played by Wilson himself – I’m not sure because the screen was very small and the man’s head was covered by the lighting rig) turned up, took out his guitar, tuned it, and, after an intolerably long pause, began to play the opening notes to ‘Trains’ by Porcupine Tree. At this very moment, Wilson himself walked on stage, carrying his own acoustic guitar, playing along. When he opened his mouth to sing; that was the moment I knew I’d made the right decision to come.

‘Trains’ was but a brief introduction, however, and immediately following it the band plunged into ‘Luminol’, which was the song from The Raven that worked best live. Its larger than life, 70s throwback feel really made it seem like I was travelling back in time, and I could tell everyone on stage was really throwing themselves into it. That’s not to dismiss the album’s other songs, though: ‘The Holy Drinker’, though it lacked Alan Parsons’ guitar solo, had even more power and confidence than the original. ‘The Watchmaker’ kept the delicate beauty of its studio version, and it and ‘Drive Home’ were both kept absolutely believable with the help of Wilson’s vocals. ‘Drive Home’ was accompanied by a video, which like the opening one I had trouble seeing, but what I did see looked like a great and moving accompaniment. The one song that I thought didn’t quite live up to the original was the title track, ‘The Raven that Refused to Sing’ itself, because it lacked the intimacy and clean feel that I like about it, and tried a little too hard to be an epic concert closer.

Of course, there were also a range of songs from Wilson’s two previous albums. The highlight of these was ‘Index’ for sure: already a highlight on Grace for Drowning, its fast-paced psychopathy was magnified on stage and I was half expecting Wilson to leap out into the audience, brandishing a knife – hearing it played like that was a real rush. Another great moment was the condensed, 15-minute version of ‘Raider II’ which was such a good decision for the band, as it kept all the best parts of the original while cutting out the parts that weren’t quite as strong. ‘Sectarian’ made an appearance too, and is notable for being the point in the concert where I had the ‘I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be here’ moment I have somewhere in every concert, and we were also treated to the melancholy ballad ‘Postcard’, which I wasn’t expecting to work on stage but did, and the single from Insurgentes, ‘Harmony Korine’, which I’ve apparently been pronouncing wrong for years. Oh, yeah, and it was incredibly well played by the entire band, especially the keyboard player.

Just before the interval, Wilson announced that he was premiering a new song, stating ‘Some people are surprised that I’ve written new material already… but I’m old enough to remember a time when it was normal for bands to release an album every year.’ I love the idea; I always love to hear new music and generally do enjoy songs right from the first listen, so it was a great contrast to the other songs that I knew really well. The new song was called ‘Wreckage’ (that night, anyway) and, though unpolished, seems like it’s going to be really, really excellent. It’s very dynamic, combining the high intensity of ‘Luminol’ with the quiet emotion of ‘Drive Home’, as well as something else I can’t quite put my finger on that shows he’s still growing as a songwriter. I have high hopes for his fourth album.

Between songs, Wilson was a great showman and had great interactions with the audience. Towards the beginning, he casually revealed that this was his hundredth solo show. ‘Since I was last here with Porcupine Tree, I’ve made two solo records and played a hundred shows, according to my statistician… or maybe it’s a hundred solo records and two shows, I can never remember.’ Later, he and his keyboard player educated us on the Mellotron. ‘How many of you know what a Mellotron is?’ (Cue a large cheer.) ‘So those of you who are over sixty. It was the first sampling instrument and is particularly famous for its flute and string sounds.’ The player demonstrates by playing a few bars of the introductions to ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘The Court of the Crimson King’. ‘No songs have ever made those sounds famous…’

And as if he hasn’t given us enough great material already, Wilson and band come back after the final Raven number to play ‘Radioactive Toy’ from the first ever Porcupine Tree album. It’s probably the first great song he ever wrote, and it’s a real reminder of where he came from. In true arena-pop-concert style, he offers the audience the microphone to sing the final chorus, and it may only be a couple thousand voices, but everyone gets into it, shouting as loudly and tunelessly as they can ‘Give me a reason to destroy; give me… RADIOACTIVE TOY!’ Then, we’re treated to a space rock improvisation to finish the night – ‘because nobody started using the P-word to describe me until the third or fourth album.’

I’d go back tonight if I could. As that’s not possible, I’ll probably be waiting until the next tour, but I would undoubtedly go back.