Steven Wilson, Royal Albert Hall, 29th March 2018 – The Sound of Muzak

This morning at 10am I was in front of my computer trying (in vain as it happened) to get tickets to see Snow Patrol in April. The tickets were going to be £70 and it was standing. Remember what I said about standing before? In the evening I was seated in the splendour of the Royal Albert Hall to see Steven Wilson for which I paid only £50. I’d never seen him live before and (spoiler alert!) he was tremendous.

The Royal Albert Hall is a great place and perfect for someone like Wilson. Not only does it look great but because it was designed for music the acoustics are fantastic and you get a good view no matter where you are. Contrast this to the awful Wembley arena where it sounds like you are in a bucket and the view is poor.

Normally you go to a show and you listen to the music and watch the band play but this was much more a multimedia experience. I’d read reviews of Porcupine Tree in the past and this sounds very similar. There was a giant screen behind the stage showing videos. Occasionally a net screen was drawn in front of the stage onto which things were projected, such as Ninet Tayeb (above) and dancers. On stage we were treated to Indian dancers dancers and the ever entertaining “Sir” Nicholas Beggs (for someone most associated with pop Beggs does like his prog regularly appearing with both Wilson and Steve Hackett).

Wilson covers a big range of styles moving quite effortlessly from pop through to heavy rock and a lot of prog. As last nights gig was being recorded for dvd there wasn’t a lot of talking between tracks so as to squeeze as many tracks in but there was one interesting section where Wilson stuck up for pop. This had come about because Wilson’s latest album, ‘To the bone’ is perhaps more accessible and, yes, poppy for some. Wilson made a spirited defence of pop and said the “best band ever is the beatles and second best is Abba. I’ve written a great pop song” and he has – Permanating (comes with a great video above). Last night’s rendition also included the dancers

WIlson said, towards the end of the set, that “I’m going to end with two miserable songs. One is miserable with a sing along chorus and the second one is just miserable!” He was right!