Porcupine Tree @ The Fillmore

It was an experience I'll not forget for a good, long time.

That sums up my thoughts after going to San Francisco with fellow SoN-ers Thom and Matt to see the final U.S. show of Porcupine Tree's Arriving Somewhere... live DVD release tour.

Read on for details of the show, pictures, and the associated adventures.

We flew out of Salt Lake City (via Southwest) Friday afternoon and arrived in Oakland before sunset. We took the BART shuttle bus to the airport/collesium station and rode the train to the Powell Street exit in San Francisco.

That was the first time I've been on a BART train since the 1980s. They're nicer than the subways in New York, with the padded seats and all. All I remember from riding the BART as a child was that the trains had a sleek, futuristic look. They definitely look like they would have had a sleek, futuristic look in the 1980s.

We still had an hour and a half before the doors opened at The Fillmore and we were hungry, so we wandered into the basement-level of the new Westfield/San Francisco Shopping Center -- a mall that just got a major renovation finished a couple weeks prior to our visit.

We got some dinner there and then headed out on foot to find Geary Boulevard which ran east and west about three blocks north of the mall. Once we were on Geary, we walked west about a mile and a half to The Fillmore.

Upon reaching the corner of Fillmore and Geary, we were immediately approached by several people asking if we had extra tickets we would be willing to part with and others who were selling tickets. Most of the people who approached us were interested in purchasing tickets.

There was a line of people from the box office window going back to the edge of the building. We lined up there but soon discovered it was the line for will call tickets and we should get in line down the block by the post office building if we already had our tickets (we did.)

That line continued down the street almost to the corner of Geary and Steiner Street. We positioned ourselves at the back of the line in front of the KFC/Taco Bell at the corner. As we walked past all those people who had shown up before we had, we noticed several remarkable things about our fellow Porcupine Tree enthusiasts. There were many wearing Pink Floyd and Roger Waters t-shirts. Of course, some were wearing Porcupine Tree shirts from previous tours. Other noteable bands appearing on t-shirts included Opeth and Dream Theater. This gathering of people were firmly rooted in their appreciation of progressive rock music.

I mentioned to Thom that someone passing by the line might wonder if the line was for a special screening of some new film adaptation of a Tolkien book. The crowd had that same general intellectual-fantasy-geek feel to it. I half-expected the people at the front of the line to be in the midst of a D&D game.

Thom noticed a person reading a Star Wars novel and another reading a Douglas Adams paperback. He indicated that we fit right in since he had brought along Douglas Adams' "Salmon of Doubt" to read and I had brought SELinux By Example (which features a light saber on the cover), which I am reviewing for the PLUG website.

As we waited for 8:00 to approach so we could enter The Fillmore, more people walked past us -- some asking if anyone had any tickets to sell -- and the line extended around the corner and down Steiner St. A couple official Fillmore staff wandered up to check on things and I overheard one tell someone that the show was sold out. How exciting!

The line moved pretty quickly once the doors opened. I would have to say -- with the exception of Salt Lake's newest bigger venue: The Depot and The Big Easy in Spokane, WA -- The Fillmore is the nicest concert hall I've been in. The place reeks of history as there are large framed photos of dozens, maybe hundreds, of famous performance artists that have played there over the many years it has existed.

I should take a moment here to mention that Thom was as much excited about seeing Porcupine Tree in concert as he was about seeing a show at The Fillmore because he had an appreciation of the significance of the venue I didn't have. He tried to explain it to me a few times even mentioning that a very cool recording he had of the Pink Floyd from 1970 was recorded there at The Fillmore.

The hall itself had a gorgeous dark red curtain along the front and right walls. The floor was carpeted with the exception of a large wooden dance floor right in front of the stage.

The lighting rig didn't look that impressive to me - a few par cans and a handful of moving heads. That impression changed.

I hadn't told Matt or Thom who the opening band was and it wasn't printed on the ticket, so they didn't know what to expect. I had completely forgotten who it was, so I used my Treo to dig it up on the Web: Tony Levin.

Matt and Thom didn't hear me when I first said it -- they were engrossed in some conversation about the venue or something. I said it again and both their eyes got big as they comprehended what I had said. They had me repeat it a couple more times.

I knew I had heard of Tony Levin, but I wasn't sure where from. Thom spelled it out for me: Tony was one of the best bass players in the world and was a big name in the progressive rock world. Tony played on Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse Of Reason album as well as recording with dozens of others like Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel (I remember hearing him named by Gabriel on the Secret World CD "shaking his tree" during the band introduction in Shaking The Tree), Paul Simon, Chuck Mangione, King Crimson, and Peter Frampton.

So, bonus! We came to see Porcupine Tree and ended up at a sold-out show featuring a killer opening act as well.

Tony Levin Band

The Tony Levin Band came out and introduced themselves as a barbershop quartet. It was charming and quite good. My good buddy Dave should have been there for that.

And then this Tony Levin guy turned into some kind of alien hybrid monster who did things with stringed instruments I've never seen or imagined possible. He opened the show by playing an upright electric bass with a bow. Then, I think he switched to a fretless electric. Later, he brought out his Chapman Stick -- adding to the not-of-this-world characteristic I described before.

The music of the Tony Levin Band was jazzy and upbeat. Not surprisingly, very bassy and worked the venue's subwoofer arsenal overtime. It was a little too much for Matt and Thom who were irritated that we had positioned ourselves right in front of the left mains.

The other members of the Tony Levin Band were all accomplished musicians who have histories comparable to Tony's: Jesse Gress, Jerry Marotta, Larry Fast, and Pete Levin (Tony's brother).

Porcupine Tree

After a brief intermission, Porcupine Tree took the stage with a brief "Hello" from Steve Wilson and immediately launched into a song nobody knew. I had read online Porcupine Tree was opening with new material they'd been working on, so this was no surprise.

Steve seemed concerned about his guitar during that first song and fiddled with the Bad Cat amplifier located directly behind him on stage.

Immediately after starting into the second song, Steve stopped everything and the band's guitar tech ran onstage to help Steve identify what was wrong. A few moments later, Steve stepped forward and apologized for "technical difficulties" and went back to trying to figure out what was wrong.

A few moments later, Steve returned to his microphone to announce that the amplifier was fried.

They did a song with Steve playing keyboard on an M-Audio MIDI controller while the guitar tech tried to remedy the amp problem.

After some onstage discussion, John Wesley's Bat Cat amp was moved from stage right to where Steve's amp was. This didn't really solve much of the problem because now Wes had nothing to play through.

Steve strapped on an accoustic-electric and asked what the audience wanted to hear. He played a PT song and did a cover of an Alanis Morissette song. By the time that was done, someone had found a Marshall amp and got it hooked up for Wes to use.

On with the show!

The band continued with more music completely unknown to the crowd. It was all very good stuff, very much in the vein of what has been heard on Deadwing and In Absentia. I thought some of it was more mellow. Thom thought some of it sounded "samey.".

I was disappointed there wasn't a screen behind the band doing visuals along with the music. I saw there was a projector mounted from the ceiling and was hoping a screen would magically appear when the band started playing or something, but it wasn't to be.

Steve announced a five-minute break and the M-Audio MIDI controller was removed from the stage. As we tried to rest our feet and backs, a fog machine on stage left started cranking volumnous amounts of fog onto the stage. It was about then I noticed the projector on the ceiling had changed- it was now lit up. Shortly thereafter, a screen rolled down behind the band and Deadwing imagery appeared.

The band came back out and played songs from Deadwing and In Absentia. One of my favorites was "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" which was accompanied by high-speed video of highway traffic and driving through tunnels and urban concrete canyons.

Pictures

I had read no cameras were allowed at the show, so I didn't bring my Fuji or my Canon digital cameras. I did plan on shooting a few pictures with my Treo. In retrospect, I wish I had brought one of my nicer digital cameras.

Nevertheless, here are some pictures I took.

After the show

The show ended after the BART trains stopped running, so we hailed a cab to take us back to the Oakland airport. While en route we decided to have the driver take us to a Dennys instead. Fortuantely, there was one close to the airport by the freeway exit.

We hung out there until 4 a.m. and then started walking to the airport. We had hoped to hail another cab, but we didn't see any. We were about 5 minutes from the airport terminal when a sherriff car pulled over in front of us and a deputy stepped out and asked us what we were doing.

We told him the truth, of course, that we'd been at Dennys and were walking to the airport to catch our flight later. He asked us where we were from and told us we were at risk of being "jumped" and offered us a ride to the terminal in the back of his cruiser, which we accepted.

Now, the back of a police cruiser isn't very comfortable when it's outfitted to take arrested criminals to jail. The seat is a hard molded plastic and there's really only enough space for two people. I ended up sitting between Matt and Thom with my head tilted against the roof of the car hoisted atop the seat belt buckles in the middle of the seat. Fortunately, it wasn't a very long drive and our driver took liberties with the stop-signs along the way.

We still had a couple hours before we were supposed to board our plane, so we tried to get some sleep. The plane was late getting out, but we made it to Reno with enough time to catch our next flight out to Salt Lake. I got some sleep on both flights, but I don't think Thom or Matt did.

I got home a little after noon on Saturday.