Eclipsed Festival setlist

[kabi225]

Pure Reason Revolution - Aschaffenburg, Eclipsed Festival @ Colos-Saal 22/11/08

Les Malheurs
Apogee
Deus Ex Machina
The Bright Ambassadors Of Morning
Victorious Cupid
The Twyncyn / Trembling Willows
Gloaming
-----
Voices In Winter / In The Realms Of The Divine
The Intention Craft

Clocked in at around 65 minutes.
Well received show in Germany's prog city no. 1.

Kabi

[Lawrie]

Nice one, Kabi, thanks for sharing that.

That setlist looks a wee bit short in terms of number of songs, but I guess it's a bit deceptive since many of those tracks are fairly long-ish numbers, and 65 minutes is a reasonable amount of time to be on stage... that said, I'm always greedy for more, so it won't stop me hoping that we one day see a 3 hour jobby where they play *everything* they've ever written!

Hope you enjoyed the gig, really looking forward to hearing the UK version of it on Wednesday! ;D

[blondeambassador]

Mmm, I mean, at a festival 65 minutes is a good length set but there's little reason they can't do a slightly longer one for headline shows these days- there are songs they always used to play (eg, Apprentice, Aeropause) that they could carry on playing, for a headline set I don't think they're quite at the stage where they need to cut old material out to play the new.

But I guess thats just wishful thinking on my part to be honest.

[the dark fourth]

It doesn't matter too much how long the set is, as long as it works well. I really really think they need to mess with the song order a little between sets. The Deus-Ambassadors-VC-(VIW)-Willows thing is getting SOOOOOOO old. I hate to say it, but they should cut Bright Ambassadors, which apart from the minute and a half at the end is a waste of ten good minutes of live time, and make sure they get in all the great live numbers like Borgens, Nimos and Apprentice. And they still have yet to give a convincing reason for not doing Goshen's or Bullitts. Both would be fantastic live.

[the dark fourth]

DISCLAIMER: I don't want anyone to think I'm not a fan of their live set....it's still insanely cool. Deus works fantasticly. I expect the other new ones will as well, not that I've heard them yet. And the Intention Craft is a great finisher. What am I saying? They're ALL fantastic, it's just a matter of which are slighlty more fantastic than others, and what is the most fantastic order to put them in.

[Lawrie]

Nah, can't agree with that, Ambassadors should make 95% of all PRR sets in an ideal world. It'd be like Radiohead not playing Paranoid Android - you can get away with it once every so often just for a change, but it's such an iconic cornerstone of their back catalogue that it has to be in the set for the vast majority of the time.

That said, I agree that it wouldn't hurt for them to mix up the set on a regular basis. I think everyone would LOVE to hear some of the famous 'record-only' songs in the live set: I'm not sure if there are technical reasons (e.g. being a four-piece now rather than a five-piece etc) why the likes of Goshen's/Bullitts/He Tried To Show Them Magic etc never get a look-in, but there can't be a fan out there who wouldn't like to hear these boys let loose on stage every now and again. Personally, the song I'd most like to hear live for the first time would be Sound Of Free: I'm sure that would get any crowd absolutely buzzing, and I'd be surprised if it was a stretch to play live, especially if they used a Deus-style backing track for the synth parts.

Obviously, wanting to hear the band play previously unplayed songs live might be closer to wishful thinking than it is to a realistic hope, but I also agree that if the band aren't going to play some of the 'missing' songs then they could definitely mix up the order of the current setlist. Yes, some songs naturally flow into each other and sound good that way, but just for variety's sake it would be good to shake things up a bit every so often: if nothing else it keeps the crowd on their toes!

We've got a bit sidetracked from the original post here, haven't we, so apologies to Kapi for hijacking the thread somewhat, but I think TDF raises some excellent points for debate here: good stuff.

[kabi225]

No problem. Happy to see that I've actually infused some life into this board.
Their *headline* show in Rüsselsheim a couple of weeks back was 67 minutes and the Rockpalast show was only 80 minutes because they played Deus Ex Machina again after three minutes of clapping, so basically that set was also just over 70 minutes.
Don't want to sound negative, but it'd surprise me if you got a (much) longer set in London.
As to their playing the same order of songs. Obviously this is due to the amount of backing tapes they use. I could imagine that it'd be quite some editing work to change them every day so they keep the same order as often (and as long) as possible. The main set they played on Saturday was identical with the main set in Rüsselsheim and identical with the entire Porcupine Tree support set they played last month.

Kabi

[blondeambassador]

Yeah, I do totally understand why they realistically can't mix up the track order on dates of a tour, it's too much work. I do also see the view though that some of these songs have been being played in the same order for a long while now...though how anyone can suggest Ambassadors shouldn't be in the set is beyond me...I agree, it's actually no longer one of my favourites in general, but it is so key to PRR that I'd be very shocked if it ever gets cut from the set.

Having said that, I think the set they are touring this time round IS exciting, there's alot of new material there, just as I said earlier, I wish they wouldn't cut the old stuff out yet just yet and would simply play a longer set- but then I would say that wouldn't I!! Bearing in mind I actually saw them in Barcelona not that long ago, they certainly can't be accused of playing the same old set they did all of last year anymore.

[the dark fourth]

I'm not sure I fully follow why they can't change the song order frequently. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it always seems like the backing track is seperate for each song, not in one long continuous backing track for the whole gig. Hence the varying length of pauses between tracks, and hence Paul always counting them in when they're ready to start. As for Bright Ambassadors, I do see your points. I guess its appearance in 95% of sets would be justified (though at the mo I think it's 100%...) One change I might suggest is opening with Victorious Cupid. It's got such a cool intro, and it's a great little rocker. I don't know what Malheurs is like as an opener these days (I retract my suggestion if I find it's awesome tomorrow) but I always felt that In Aurelia was a little slow to get going...it's a fantastic song but doesn't quite get the crowd going like an opener should.

Also, I agree fully with BA that the set list they're currently doing is especially exciting due to the cool new tracks. And really it is silly of me to complain about these little things, when we're talking about such an amazing thing. It's like complaining that Shakespeare should have made different editing decisions - what does it matter when the finished product is so cool?

[ryan]

It used to be a stuck set because the projections were (i'm fairly sure) one hour(ish) long video, not separate one's for each track.
Less excuse now I guess, but historically it's that.

[the dark fourth]

But even so, the song order wouldn't have to stay the same, just the length of the set as a whole. And I'm sure it wouldn't be too much effort to copy and paste another 30 minutes of projection time. I'm just saying there always has to be room for creativity in live sets, if there isn't then they're in danger of become too much of an studio album replica. Not that PRR is remotely close to this dismal fate, but the more creative experimentation on the stage the better in my books.

[ryan]

The projections were supposed to fit certain songs though, so the order did have to be fixed. It was never spot on, but normally they were pretty good.
It was a stupid way of doing it though.