Which guys are you not a fan of?Originally Posted by gpeccary
Which guys are you not a fan of?
I'm looking forward to seeing him and the band in London next month but have to say I am somewhat confused by the setlist. He's managed to include many of my least liked PT/SW tracks and while I've no doubt the band will pull off the PT songs perfectly, I would have preferred to hear more from his last 3 solo albums.
I saw Wilson in Coventry tonight. Excellent show! A lot of instrumental work and very heavy in places. I can't name the setlist, as although I have all his albums (And PT stuff) I don't know a lot of the names of the songs.
I particularly enjoyed the stuff from To The Bone and Lazarus. Interesting light show with some quite creepy films playing in the background!
I was there as well. Pretty much exactly the same setlist as he has been playing recently. I wasn't wild about how curmudgeonly SW seemed in his comments from the stage but the most interesting thing he said is that the title track from Raven is one of his favourite of his songs, but from one of his least favourite albums. Maybe he regrets having such a strong classic Prog influence on that one.
Seems the setlist is pretty much set in stone, unless he is playing a second night or Ninet is guesting. I'm doing the first two nights at the RAH and hope we get a variation.
Yes, he has been changing the set up a bit on a second night in the same venue, can't wait for the 2 NYC gigs. No Ninet here though.
"Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
"I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973
Is there a list of dates when Ninet will be guesting with him? I'm seeing his 3rd London show in two weeks.
I'm seeing them two nights at the RAH next week although would be happy if it was just one after seeing the setlists. After watching quite a few YouTube vids though I do find it strange how SW seems to be generally grumpy and almost daring the audience not to enjoy Permanating. I think everyone should take a newspaper and start reading them when he plays it - that'll make him really grumpySomeone will probably tell him about this comment and I'll get a special bollocking all of my own!
He didn't wanna be prog. It's just the shoulders he climbed up on.
I thought his FB post from earlier today was very interesting. Talk about a 180 degree turn in opinion (emphasis mine):
5 songs from To the Bone have now each had over 1 million streams on Spotify, with Pariah at over 2 million, while the album as a whole continues to rack up approximately 50,000 song streams every day. By Spotify standards these are actually still quite modest numbers, but they are increasing for me all the time. As someone who believes very much in music presented as a physical art-form I resisted making my albums available on streaming platforms until relatively recently, but my feelings have changed somewhat. There are a lot of arguments for and against streaming, but the reality is that for those of us who make and want to share music that we believe in we need to acknowledge that there is now a whole generation of listeners for whom if the music is not on streaming services it simply does not exist.
There's no simple answer to the issue of lost revenue to the musicians, but I believe that people who listen on streaming platforms fall in to roughly 3 categories: Firstly, those who never buy physical product and for whom if the music isn't there they will never hear it at all - as many of these people still presumably go to see live music, discovering a new artist might mean instead they will buy a ticket to see the concert and perhaps a t-shirt while they are there. The second category is the people who use streaming to discover new music but subsequently buy the CD or vinyl if they like it enough (I would fall into this category). Finally there are the people who have bought a physical copy of the album and simply use streaming services as a way to conveniently access the music they already own. In none of these scenarios can I see how revenue is lost to the artist that would otherwise be made, except to say of course that if streaming didn't exist the people who don't buy physical product would have to buy it to hear music. But it does, and it's not going to go away, so there doesn't seem much point dwelling on that.
As a musician working in the current era I feel I have to recognise streaming as a convenient and flexible way for people to find music, because there is a vast amount of it available, more than at any other time in history (some might say too much). And anything that enables listeners to discover the magic of music has to be a positive thing. The brief "golden" era of the second half of the 20th century when a living could be made by selling physical recordings of music appears to be over, the rest will just be mourning that fact and manoeuvring for position while we move into the next era. I think it is important to respond to the undeniable shift towards “on demand” media and to fight against it is to fail to recognise it’s potential and ultimately to be left behind.
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
He's done wide variety of stuff. The early PT was more space rock than prog, and his other side projects are pretty diverse.
If people want to dance during “Permanating” that’s fine by me, but being told that I have to dance and, when I stand up, being lectured about how the greatest pop group was The Beatles and pop music is realllly important, is just absurdly patronising. SW even trotted out the line about his mum listening to ABBA and his dad listening to Pink Floyd again ... FFS who doesn’t have both ABBA and Pink Floyd in their collection these days?! He's not so much pushing against an open door as trying to kick in a revolving door at this point and one of these days he's going to get his foot stuck in it ...I do find it strange how SW seems to be generally grumpy and almost daring the audience not to enjoy Permanating. I think everyone should take a newspaper and start reading them when he plays it - that'll make him really grumpy
At Coventry it wasn't just that though: telling a bunch of middle-aged concert-goers that they're a bit old isn't exactly out of the first page of How To Win Friends And Influence People. Good for him if he gets a younger audience in Europe but it's hardly the fault of the people who turn up that they didn't have to fight a teenager for the ticket.
(The concert was very good by the way. Maybe let the music do the talking for you, Steven.)
His nickname is 'Mr Chuckletrousers'... I'd have been disappointed if he wasn't a curmudgeon and I got the impression he wasn't being that serious.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
And I'd rather devote set time to any Porcupine Tree song over anything from Grace or Raven. You can't please everyone.
It is funny to hear about the proportion of PT stuff. On principle I'd see the merits of the mostly-new approach, but if he's excited about those older songs now that there's some distance and perspective to reevaluate them, fine. He should be playing the material that feels best. I'm on board with some looking backward in this case much more than with, say, King Crimson.
The SWHQ site seems to have no word on who's playing on this tour, though. Anyone?
Blundell, Beggs, Holtzman. No Theo Travis (and he's missed). The new guitarist is Alex Hutchings, who is adequate. Apparently Ninet is appearing at some concerts.
Thanks. Too bad about Theo, though. I'm sure I'll miss him too if I can make it to the show here in April. (Hell, he's only got a one-off gig during this tour. I say he'd still fit fine with the Bone songs.)
“The food here is terrible, and such small portions!”
Yeah, I’m not gonna wanna dance.
I’m glad he’s not playing Routine or Drive Home. Those songs are instant depression for me.
Health permitting, I'll be covering his Montreal show April 21. Anyone else from Ottawa planning to go?
John Kelman
Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
Freelance writer/photographer
Is this the first time SW has said that Raven was one of his least favourite solo album?
It's definitely a long way from To The Bone, but the musicianship on Raven is outstanding.
I'll be there John. Taking my 17 year old son.
I wondered if it was news; certainly I've never read that he had said this. It seems bizarre to me, but perhaps it's why he didn't lock in Marco, Guthrie and Alan Parsons the way I expected him to.
Routine has been played on the tour a couple of times.
Wow. For me it's my favourite of anything he's done, with PT or solo, and by some way.
Tu veux un camembert?
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