Review by Khushal Bhadra

So today was the day where Mumbai city witnessed a wonderful performance by Porcupine Tree band from England led by frontman Steven Wilson. The whole experience of the venue to the performance of the band had a lot of shades to it. Myself along with my friend reached the venue exactly at around 3:30 pm. Checking out the environment it was pretty decent since its one of the biggest college i.e. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Mumbai) Mood Indigo festival. People from all parts of India were present to see the band perform live for the very first time in India, Mumbai. Earlier, in Asia Porcupine tree have only performed in Japan. So this was a treat for all progressive rock fans in Mumbai.

The only best part about this festival was the Porcupine tree show. The college guys, organizers and staffs were not able to manage the crowds. Security was a complete joke. These guys were so psyched that they did not allow people(fans) to get their Ipods and music player inside the venue. Many fans started to break lines and get inside the Open Air Theater as soon as possible. I would say it was a complete failure on the part of the college staff and organizers. Many of the security guys were so rude and had no knowledge how to handle crowds which certainly needs to be improved.

I am emphasizing on it because in future I would request bands to perform here in India, Mumbai City via better event organizers like DNA Networks, Oranjuice or Opium events who have had better experience to handle Metal/Rock artists from all across the world . Professional event management firm is a way to go for International Bands/Artists who are willing to perform here. So we were in queue from 3:30 pm expecting the gates to open by 5:00 pm but it wasn’t to be. The gates opened at around 6:00 pm yet the queue we were in, moved just few meters from where we started. Many of us fans missed even the opening act performance by India’s oldest rock band named Parikrama due the lack luster management as we reached the theater at around 7:30 pm. The only good part were the food counters which were perfectly managed by them.

Leaving that aside we were all eager for the performance of Porcupine tree and by 8:00 pm crowd started shouting "Steven Steven” and just after 10 minutes or so the band headed by Steven Wilson took command of the stage and started with the track called Occam's Razor from the new album The Incident. Being a fan and a audience I felt Steven Wilson was a bit nervous at start as 7,000 – 10,000 fans were screaming their lungs out and waving their devils horns to show their gratitude towards the band. The place was completely buzzing with all sorts of noises. After the first song the band were full of confidence and gave their best performance till date, even with some power and sound issues they encountered during the show. This was a path breaking concert for Steven and his clan. Steven was so impressed by the enthusiasm of the fans that he even promised that they will soon come back to perform here in India. Some of the songs that they played were Time Flies and Trains where even the audience started singing along with the band such was the performance by this brilliant band. I would like to describe the entire show as simply divine.

Setlist was as follows:-

Occam's razor

Blind house

Sound of muzak

Hatesong

Open car

Time flies

Blackest eyes

The start of something beautiful

Russia on ice

Anesthize

Lazarus

Octane twisted

The Seance

The circle of manias

Way out of here

Bread

 

Encore:-

 Trains

 Halo

I have few footage of the show which I managed to capture and I am sharing with all you fans pretty soon just to get the experience and buzz at the concert. Hope you’ll like my review and will also help bands to next time look for better organizers rather than college festivals for better experience for fans all across India.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6655402/17287394