Review: Joshua Batten. Photos: Jason Rosewarne
Saturday, November 15th @ The Forum, Melbourne
November 2025 has proven that there is still a huge demand for live rock music in Australia, but with mainstream media only covering big stadium shows by the likes of Oasis, Metallica and AC/DC, it’s easy to feel left out if, like me, you prefer a more intimate, sophisticated approach to music. When modern progressive rock icon Steven Wilson announced that he would be touring Australia for the first time in seven years in support of his latest album The Overview, I felt both excitement and anxiety. This would be his biggest tour to date, playing all five major cities in fairly sizeable venues, but the fact remains – despite his best efforts to reach across the aisle in recent years, Wilson’s music is not the most accessible, with a focus on heavy concepts, intricate musical arrangements and immersive Spatial Audio. Promotion of the gigs came mainly via direct emails and social media, so your average music fan doesn’t really have an awareness of Steven Wilson and his music. Would enough people turn up to make Wilson’s long trip over from the UK worthwhile?
Of course, I needn’t have worried – The Overview Tour is Wilson’s fourth visit to Australia as a solo artist, and sixth including his two visits in the late 2000’s with his band Porcupine Tree. I’ve been to every one of his solo tours, and I’ve watched him grow from an intimate club act at 170 Russell to a theatre headliner. His last show in 2018 the Palais Theatre was a bit underwhelming in hindsight, where the fixed seating, inconsistent quality of his most recent material, and sheer size of the room dwarfed Wilson and his band. Tonight, he is at the comparatively more intimate Forum on Flinders Street, where its atmospheric night-sky ceiling and walls provide a perfect backdrop for Wilson’s Space-Rock journey to take flight.
The room is fully packed when Wilson and his band walk on stage, and without any preamble or intro, launch straight into a full performance of The Overview album, comprising two 20-minute pieces (“Objects Outlive Us” and the title track) exploring the existentialism of life on earth from an interstellar perspective. Both pieces are accompanied by fully animated films which are displayed on a screen behind (or rather, above) the band. Wilson has always had video projections as part of his show, but this time it feels like a movie presentation with live band accompaniment. The screen is the largest he has used to date, the musicians are all out in front with no backline, and two sets of rear speakers are placed at the back of the floor space and back of the room, providing a true quadrophonic sound mix. The quad speakers aren’t used on every song of the show, but throughout the night they act as a sixth member of the band, being used mostly for ambient soundscapes, additional synths and backing vocals. Even the front of house mix seems to utilise some stereo panning, which is quite rare in a live setting where mono is usually king and everything is walled off.
“Objects Outlive Us” is the more ‘proggy’ of the two pieces on the album, with a steady rhythm throughout, but featuring various changes in mood, time signature and vocal phrasing. Wilson switches effortlessly between keyboards and acoustic/electric guitars, and lead guitarist Randy McStine gets several moments to shred, including a full recreation of the blistering solo he played on the album during the ‘Cosmic Suns of Toil’ movement.
The more electronic-driven title track follows and like many of his pieces I have struggled to connect with as studio recordings, the live performance is much more immersive and enjoyable. For both pieces, the films strike the right balance of visualising the music and lyrics without getting too detailed. It feels more like something you’d see at a planetarium rather than the character driven videos made for Wilson’s material in the past. It can feel like a bit of a sensory overload, as there are very few breaks in the visuals and you’re left not knowing what to focus on, the visuals, the music, or the players.
The sensory overload tones down for the second set, featuring many pieces without videos, allowing the band and music to be the focus under the multi-coloured light show. After a 10-minute break, the band opens their second set with an excerpt from PT’s psychedelic epic “Voyage 34”, followed by “Home Invasion/Regret #9” from 2015’s Hand. Cannot. Erase. This piece is the showcase for a synth solo from keyboard player Adam Holtzman and another guitar solo for McStine. Wilson has always surrounded himself with amazing players, to the point where he considers himself “the worst musician onstage”, and he now has a stable lineup of incredible players who each have massive pedigrees. Bass player Nick Beggs has been a mainstay of Wilson’s band since his first solo tour in 2011 and utilises a variety of techniques across bass and Chapman stick, while also adding dulcet falsetto backing vocals. Likewise, drummer Craig Blundell straddles the line between jazz show-off and powerhouse rock drummer, playing fills, rolls and ghost notes without ever losing time.
Steven finally addresses the crowd properly with his dry humour, shouting out the people who are at the concert ‘by accident’ (ie: accompanying someone else) and acknowledging that after an hour of playing and only four songs, it’s time for something shorter (but still long by TikTok standards), so we get two songs from Wilson’s previous album The Harmony Codex; the acoustic ballad “What Life Brings” and electronic album closer “Staircase”. Wilson takes an extended guitar solo in PT deep cut “Dislocated Day”, focusing more on controlling feedback and effects rather than melodies or a flurry of notes. This is followed by two of my favourite songs in Wilson’s solo catalogue – “Pariah”, another acoustic ballad featuring guest vocals onscreen from Israeli singer-songwriter Ninet Tayeb, and the 12-minute King Crimson-esque “Luminol”. This second piece was the first song I ever heard live from Wilson at his first solo show in Australia back in 2013 and has always held a special place in my heart. I’ve been patiently waiting for it to be brought back into the setlist, so it was great to hear it once again tonight, taking me back to my final year of High School.
The main set concludes with shoegaze anthem “Harmony Korine” and instrumental jam “Verimillioncore”. The latter had the only technical hiccup of the night, as the accompanying video didn’t appear onscreen until about a minute into the song, though if the Apple Mac home screen hadn’t popped up for a split second as they worked it out, I don’t think anyone would have noticed!
For the encore, Wilson brushed off audience requests for Porcupine Tree fan favourites such as “Trains” and “Lazarus”, acknowledging that while they may be the most popular songs within his fanbase, “if you go out on the street and ask 500 people to name a song of mine, they couldn’t do it”. So, with no pressure to play the ‘hit singles’, Steven ends his set with two epic pieces; the 14-minute hauntingly introspective “Ancestral”, followed by the title track from 2013’s The Raven That Refused To Sing, which has closed out nearly every Steven Wilson show since its release, accompanied by the beautiful paper-doll animation by Jess Cope, with shades of Tim Burton and Edgar Allan Poe.
For all my anxiety about the logistics of this tour and how much money Steven Wilson splurges on his artistic vanity projects for a niche audience in a sea of pub and stadium rock, none of that matters once you’re in the room, immersed in the music, surrounded by passionate music lovers who are just as happy to be on the journey Wilson leads us along. In my opinion, the fact that Wilson is not mentioned alongside the greats such as Floyd, Bowie, Yes, King Crimson, Rush, Radiohead and Tool is a crime against his talent, but I think many would agree that we would be annoyed if he were more famous, it would be akin to losing the key to our secret club. It may have taken him longer than usual to return to our shores due to divisive musical detours with recent albums, a global pandemic, a Porcupine Tree reunion cycle, and a change in local promoter, but it’s comforting to know that Wilson knows his progressive rock audience is firmly loyal and as strong as ever.
REMAINING DATES: STEVEN WILSON. THE OVERVIEW AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2025
Sunday 16 November
ICC Darling Harbour Theatre
Sydney, NSW
Monday November 17
QPAC Concert Hall
Brisbane QLD
Tickets and Information at
teamwrktouring.com
stevenwilsonhq.com
