Recommendations of the Editorial team
On Monday evening (02.06.2025), Prog sovereignty Steven Wilson made a guest appearance with a very special show in the Berlin Friedrichstadt-Palast. The first part of the concert only consisted of two songs that come together to 45 minutes. These are Wilson’s new, just from these songs “The Overview” album, which consists of the pieces “Inclination” and “What Life Brings”.
What sounds like a springs on paper on paper was actually an entertaining, compositional and dramaturgically never in self-gracefulness or unnecessary over-ambition for an end in itself. Rather, Wilson, without any question, pulls one of the greatest masters of his field, all – but also really all – registers. It begins cinematic, which of course is due to the visuals and films on the large screen. We see pictures of planets, nature shots, neuronal -looking patterns. There are increasingly planetology at “What Life Brings”. The sound is very good, there are monitor boxes at the very front on stage, which sound every corner of the audience in the semicircle (Wilson inquires about the sound quality after seeing how some of the ears were in louder places). Everything is immersive, stirring. Musically, the band is beyond any doubt anyway – and yet that evening you are less inclined to staring at the grip boards, but instead closes your eyes and simply lets the music look.
Wilson can do nothing wrong anyway. He and his band get the standing ovations that evening after the first piece. After the first 45 minutes, after a short break it goes into a second set that offers some pieces by Wilson’s last album “The Harmony Codex”, but also some Porcupine-Tree songs of the phase in which it was still Steven Wilson’s one-man project.
Wilson apologizes for the “unnecessarily long, complex songs”
He himself looks in a good mood, almost solved. Again and again he comes to the edge of the stage, seeks contact with the audience, which he feels too far away in the Friedrichstadt-Palast. As if there was “The Wall” – that would be an idea for a concept album, he jokes. Wilson is joking at all. He wants to know whether there is someone in the audience who is only by chance – who actually didn’t want to be there, but just came to a friend or relative. One or two show. He apologizes for them, as he jokes, “unnecessarily long, unnecessarily complex songs”.
Wilson continues to joke: he ignores the trouble that every song must be at least 20 minutes. For the sake of them – and himself – he announces that two shorter songs should now follow. Pop songs, which-according to Wilson’s joke-will annoy very present prog community in his concerts. Then he plays two shorter pieces. However, these are just as well received as the long ones. Wilson later apologizes that it will now continue with the sprawling process. He gets frenetic applause either way – for every sun length.
No cell phones, devout audience
Wilson also managed what Ghost still needed strict cell phone bans in the Berlin subway arena a few weeks earlier. Nobody picked up the smartphone, nobody took photos, everyone listened devoutly. When the author of these lines once briefly picked up a cell phone during the show to make a note about the setlist, he was politely aware of his neighbors that the light of the mobile phone was somewhat disturbing. Well-then again with the phone, the setlist notes can also wait until after the show.
It is over shortly before 11 p.m. Wilson and his band say goodbye, come on stage again for an encores of two songs. At the very end, as that evening, there is again standing ovation. A Prog triumph-otherwise you cannot call this evening.
Steven Wilson Live in Berlin – The Setlist
Set 1:
1. Inclination
2. What life Brings
pause
Set 2:
3. Economies of Scale
4. Rock Bottom
5. Time is running out
6. Routine
7. The Harmony Codex
8. Sleep together (Porcupine Tree)
Encores
9. Impossible Tightrope
10. Heart attack in A Layby (Porcupine Tree)