Steven Wilson, Billboard the Venue, Melbourne, 02 Oct 2013

[petemasterpete]

So, surprised the Mrs. with tix to this gig for our 9th (yes, fucking 9th) wedding anniversary... and we're both fucking glad I did. Ended up getting into the venue about 2-3 minutes into the opener, Luminol, but no bother. It was a great show, all around. I could piss and moan that I didn't get more from Insurgentes (a record I'm hopelessly in love with), but the fella is touring a new record, so I'll take Harmony Korine and be happy.

Otherwise, the set was spot on. I wasn't initially too fond of "The Raven" but it's slowly grown on me and after that gig, it'll likely get even more rotation. The quad sound was great with the watchmaker intermission being particularly enthralling (and likely mind-fucking had I been under the influence of the real goodies). The musicianship, as stated here, and generally known and expected, was top notch. Guthrie is fucking fantastic. If I'm not mistaken, Wackerman was the drummer last eve, but I haven't confirmed and I don't know what he looks like. E was really enjoying all the sax/flute work, as she grew up playing clarinet among other wing instruments. The Watchmaker, Index, Holy Drinker and especially Raider II were absolute highlights, but there really were no lows. And I'm drawing a blank on the exact tune, at the moment, but there's a track that featured some really, really deep tone, heavy slap bass and that was fucking brilliant. Steven was in genuinely good mood and fairly talkative which was nice, at one point mentioning something to the affect of, "apologies for the length of some of these tunes as I'm not so good at writing 3 minute pop songs". Ended the night with an encore of Radioactive Toy, "which is essentially a solo song from a solo record at the time" since "I'm not Prince" ... "and I don't really have any chart topping singles to play".

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/steven-wi ... 7d97c.html

[Kittaan]

Awesome Pete. I'm totally jealous. Sounds pretty similar to the set we got in SF, and it was also fantastic.

[petemasterpete]

Wackerman confirmed ... a mate says Minneman was drumming for Satriani in Buffalo last night