Porcupine Tree, Anathema - 15.04, Krakow

[Wojtek]

Heya Moonies
This year april in Krakow is a prog month. After Prog Rock Festival and before Pain of Salvation gig which is scheduled for 30.04 second part of this musical series was Porcupine Tree concert with guest performance of not less known Anathema. Concert day didn't start well. PT's leader, Steven Wilson cancelled his mini-gig from deck of... fishing boat in one of Krakow's market centers, supposedly because of allergy (and when you saw his nose you were willing to believe it). But in the evening everything had to be allright and two, three thousand of people gathered in Wisla Hall could have waited for Porcupines without a fear of cancelling.

But before we saw them on stage there had been time for prelude for the main dish for some, and for other main feature indeed - time for Anathema. Cavanagh brother's group played only 45 mins but warmed the public up so much that even long 30 min pause between concerts of two bands didn't manage to cool down the atmosphere. At last, among the chanting of impatient fans Porcupine Tree appeared on the scene and by the title track opening their album Deadwing they opened the show as well. Show extremely successfull.

Comparing to the april gig in 2003 from In Absentia Tour, last week there was 100 x more passion and joy of playing. This converted into emotions which infected the public. Their climax fell on tracks Arriving Somewhere But Not Here and Hatesong. The first one, pearl of Deadwing, because of it's expressive, rousing rhytm turned out to be a track ideal for live playing, despite it's long time (12 mins). Hatesong charmed by it's great instrumental parts, unbelievable things were performed by Gavin Harrison on drums. We didn't suffer from lack of typically "porc" songs like Even Less or A Sound of Muzak. Lion's share of tracks was illustrated by psychedelic movie sequences on the huge screen. This emphasised the atmosphere of that evening. Musicians played two tracks as an encore: cult song Shesmovedon and unique, two part version of Trains. Let's add - unique, two part because of bursting the string in Steven's guitar .

So finale of that friday gig turned out to be funny depite the fact that PT's music is not the most positive one on Earth. But it was joy and smile what was seen on the faces of fans. Musicians played so well that promoting Deadwing they lent wings to all audience.

Photos can be found here - http://www.caladan.art.pl/koncerty_sc.php?id=139 .

[teermin8r]

What a well written review, makes me wish I was there. Anyway thanks for the review. Sounds like it was a great show.

[Rick and Roll]

Hi Woj,

The pics have the same dark mood lighting as your moon gallery pic!

Thanks for a great review!