Steven Wilson – The Overview Tour – Live Review

Monday 12 May 2025

The London Palladium 

*****
Steven Wilson’s Epic Return to Solo Performance

Steven Wilson last performed as a live solo act in England seven years ago at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in a series of three concerts, one of which was later released as the concert film Home Invasion. That tour supported his fifth studio album, To the Bone, released in 2017. Since then, he has released three solo albums: The Future Bites (2021), The Harmony Codex (2023) and The Overview, released earlier this year. He tried twice to tour The Future Bites, but was twice thwarted by COVID-19.

In the meantime, to the surprise of many, he returned in 2022 with a new Porcupine Tree studio album, Closure/Continuation. Recent tours have been in support of that album – he played at Wembley Arena in London in late 2022, and at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester the following summer. He now has two touring bands: Porcupine Tree with Gavin Harrison on drums, Richard Barbieri on keyboards and Nate Navarro on bass; his solo band with Craig Blundell on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, and Adam Holzman on keyboards. The only common denominator, apart from Wilson himself, is the versatile American guitarist and backing vocalist Randy McStine.

Wilson did a short solo performance of tracks from The Harmony Codex at EartH in Hackney to mark the release of that album, but apart from that, this concert marks his return to his home town to play a solo gig. And he seems very happy to be home. Modestly describing himself as the worst musician in his band (if that’s true, that’s only because he’s surrounded by a group of phenomenal musicians), he acts as lead vocalist, and sometimes guitar and keyboard player. At other times, he’s more like the leader of a jazz band, bringing the other musicians in and at one point joining Beggs in a forensic but benign examination of Blundell’s drumming.

And the jazz analogy doesn’t end there. We are lucky enough to see the jazz saxophonist, flautist and regular Wilson collaborator Theo Travis performing for one night only (‘no expense spent’ quips Wilson) on two songs from Grace For Drowning: No Part of Me and Remainder the Black Dog. His playing is as inventive as it was in the stunning solo set he did at the Prog the Forest festival last December. He also plays in Permanence, the final section of The Overview, one of those gorgeous, profoundly contemplative songs with which Wilson has often ended his albums – Collapse the Light into Earth from Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia (2002) springs to mind. The latter song contemplates the aftermath of 9/11, while the former considers whether there may be green shoots of life on other planets or in other galaxies after mankind has destroyed the Earth; both are weighty subjects.

The jazz theme of the music continues into Adam Holzman’s keyboard playing. He shows his full jazz pedigree tonight (he was Miles Davis’s Music Director in the mid-to late 1980s), with lovely Fender Rhodes chords, exhilarating Moog runs, as well as rich Mellotron harmonies for the prog purists. Nick Beggs plays upright jazz bass on a couple of songs, and Craig Blundell’s drumming is fiercely syncopated, with some jazzy cymbal work. He drives the band with intense snare beats, and the physicality is visceral. It’s high but deserved praise to say that he has become to Wilson’s solo band what drummer Gavin Harrison has become to Porcupine Tree. Both drummers are amazing.

The concert begins with a complete performance of the two-part new album, The Overview. Projected behind the band is Miles Skarin’s stunning new film, which explores and illuminates the themes of the album. Seeing it at the IMAX launch in London revealed its pristine quality, but with strong concert lights and dry ice in front of it, the animated film seems to take on an almost 3-D quality. Having a live band playing in front of it makes this a truly immersive experience, of which both Wilson and Skarin can be justly proud. The pristine visuals are matched by the clarity of the live sound, which is superb throughout the gig.

From the opening few bars, it’s clear that Wilson is in excellent voice; his falsetto on the words ‘I incline myself to space’ is as powerful as it has ever been live. Three hours later, in the encores, his voice is as strong as ever. Instrumentally, despite his protestations, he is a powerful player. It’s great to see him showcasing his skills on the PRS guitars, which are beloved by his prog fans for their mellow and versatile tones. McStine matches his virtuosity, the two of them coming onto the apron of the stage to duet close to the audience.

Beggs is on stunning form too. The opening of Luminol from The Raven That Refused to Sing reminds us of the robust virtuosity and rhythmic precision of his playing. His sound is reminiscent of Chris Squire, the bedrock on which the sound of Yes was built for so many years. The song is an opportunity for Wilson and McStine to join Beggs in mellifluous three-part harmonies. It also showcases another jazzy element of tonight’s band: an extended improvisation at the end of the song. Beggs also shines in the driving instrumental Vermillioncore from the EP 4+1⁄2 . But perhaps the biggest surprise is that he and drummer Blundell perform the only Porcupine Tree song of the evening, Dislocated Day (from the early space-rock LP The Sky Moves Sideways) in such a blisteringly funky version.

Earlier, space rock is represented in a very different way, with Wilson playing analogue synths, spreading himself from one bank of synths to another like Rick Wakeman without the cape. His wife Rotem joins him on an evocative spoken word description of the Earth viewed from space, tying in neatly with the view of Earth from space described in the Overview Effect, in which astronauts are emotionally and sometimes spiritually affected when viewing the Earth from space.

This is a resolutely proggy evening. It’s fascinating to speculate what the abandoned tour for The Future Bites would have been like, with its much more electronic sound, but only one song has survived the Pandemic into this set list, King Ghost. Wilson graciously accepts that some members of the audience may be there with friends or family who are less prog-minded. His concession to them is to play the rocky ballad, What Life Brings (from The Harmony Codex), which he announces is only four minutes long.

But Prog Widows and others who like short songs shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security. Wilson announces at the end of the concert that there will be two encores, but one of them is fifteen minutes long. This is the prog epic Ancestral from Hand. Cannot. Erase. which is performed here in an uplifting version. On earlier tour dates, Wilson ended with an emotional song, Pariah from To the Bone. Tonight, he chooses an equally emotional song, the title track from The Raven, with Jess Cope’s powerful video behind him.

The audience pays rapt attention throughout the concert, aided by Wilson’s insistence that phones shouldn’t be used for photos or videos, which is largely respected. So we live in the moment, revelling in the joy of musicians playing at the very pinnacle of their game. It’s a privilege to be here.

This post was updated on Thursday 15 May 2025 to add Theo Travis’s name,  and to credit Jess Cope for the video of The Raven That Refused to Sing

This post was further updated on 13 September 2025 to confirm that Adam Holzman worked with Miles Davis in the mid-to late 1980s, not the 1990s as previously stated