Live Performance Reviews - Steven Wilson-Seattle 4/4/2012

Show started off with a series of pics on a large translucent screen in front of the stage, for about an hour the images appeared. Then each band member came on stage individually and began to play, for about 20 minutes the front screen stayed out. And finally the screen was removed and we had full view of the band.....The 2 hour set was absolutely brilliant!! Set list:
No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun
Index
Deform To For A Star
Sectarian
Postcard
Remainder The Black Dog
Harmony Korine
Abandoner
Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye
*Luminal*
Veneno Para Las Hadas
No Part Of Me
Raider II

Encore:
Get All You Deserve

Straight to Luminal.....Seattle is the first show of this tour leg, so we got to hear this new epic that will be on Steven's new album probably next year. Holy smokes!!! This one is fantastic, about a 20 minute epic, filled with jazzy tones, metal, psychadelia...everything. Everyone in the crowd absolutely loved that song....its excellent!

Raider II was also another brilliant epic performance, flawlessly played last night.

Marco is an amazing drummer, first time seeing him live, I was blown away. He fits SW band very well, and I could hear his Aristocrats sound in a lot of the more jazzy portions of SW songs..perfect. At the end of the show he came over to my wife and handed her one of his sticks, her screaming his name I'm sure helped. It was one of his playing stics so it is all beat up and actually splintered some, but that make it better as he actually used the stic, its hard to see his signature but I can post a pic of that.

The crowd loved Theo the brass player, too bad on a lot of songs his playing gets drowned out, but he was excellent. Niko is an amazing guitarist and Adam Holzman on keys was perfect also.

We all know SW is a freak when it comes to sound, this tour does not dissapoint, it is presented in quad sound, but being up stage front we did not get the effects as if we were in the middle of the floor...but I was fine with it. The vocals were pristine, Marco's drums were not overly present, no bass boom, boom, it was perfect.

My wife really enjoyed the show a lot......she was bobbing her head the whole time, couple songs she said she could not connect with, thought they were weird, strange but that coming from someone who has never spent anytime listening to SW or PT...although she liked Luminal a lot!

I missed his Blackfield show last May here, but most I spoke to that went said the show was also excellent......Steven Wilson is getting a great following here in Seattle, which is very cool to see, he very much likes it here. Reports were that he loves the city because of all the musical history and the record stores we have....Plus it rains alot and probably reminds him of home

Do not miss this show if at all possible.......Highly recommended if you can! From here he goes south into California and then Mexico and South America before going back to the UK and Europe shows.

This show, as I had hoped, gave me a better appreciation for Grace For Drowning. I actually bought the dbl vinyl at the show as well as a shirt. I like Insurgentes better but GFD is gonna get a lot of rotation from now on......And ohh yea, cannot wait for the new album next year, and I heard a lot of folks in line saying they had already ordered the Storm Corrosion album......

Steven Wilson is definately riding a huge wave right now!!

Cheers!