Porcupine Tree Amsterdam HMH

To give you a small impression of what was played: 

The concert opened with the support act, who was nobody less than King Crimson's Robert Fripp. He played some beautiful soundscapes and apart from some people yelling annoyingly during the performance it was a great opener. Robert Fripp played for 30 minutes, and though it was a good performance I must say it was a little bit repetative.

After a lengthy break the band finally entered the stage. The Incident suite was opened with the powerful chords and was a much better live experience then it was on the album. Also, the performance was near perfect. There where only made very few mistakes... one of them being Richard Barbieri's keyboard being incredibly loud on the title track. Luckily this was solved in a couple of seconds. It was a great first half. 

After a 10 minute break the band showed up again. This time opening with The Start Of Something Beautiful. The setlist from the second half contained some older material, mailnly some post-In Absentia stuff. Some memorable songs were Russia On Ice segueing into the middle part of Anesthetize, Bonnie The Cat, Strip The Soul and a great performance of Normal. Therer were some nice interactions between the audience and the band... like when a guy shouted a song he wanted to hear, and Steven said to him that that's not how a rock 'n roll gig goes while holding the setlist in hands. 

The venue was great too. There was room for 6000 man, with limited seats. I had obtained a seating place, and from there the view on the band was very good. The only problem was that there was random guy sitting next to me who was headbanging and jumping around even during songs like Lazarus. 

The encores were the typical ones (Sound Of Muzak and Trains)... but during these songs nobody les than Lasse Hoile came on stage to make a picture of 6000 man with their hands in front of their face, like the cover of The Incident. 

I really enjoyed the show, and it showed the fantastic abilities of the band, as they played some fantastic music making only a few minor mistakes. I was tehr with Abyssal Sheep from this site by the way.