Isolation and loneliness, separation and estrangement, personal issues…. Yes, The Pineapple Thief is back on tour and kicked off their 2024 U.S. tour in Atlanta. It’s not all so dour. The fourth song, “Put It Right,” tilts the field slightly with a nod to working things out.
Bruce Soord is the band’s leader, writer and seeming bearer of so many demons. Live, he doesn’t draw attention to himself with exaggerated swagger or guitar theatrics. But he draws an audience in with his eyes, hand movements, and confessional style of singing, uniformly calm and nuanced.
Common to prog or neo-prog, the music usually has to stand down while the vocals connect, waiting for the moment to lift the energy. That’s true for this band, but even in the quieter moments, the transformative influence that drummer Gavin Harrison brought to the band stands out. Prog fans know him from Porcupine Tree and King Crimson, but nowhere are the odd signatures and accents heard better than with this band. He’s worth the price of admission by himself.
And with a drummer like Harrison, you know the band is going to be tight. Keyboardist Steve Kitch and bassist Jon Sykes were expectedly subtle, but Soord and touring(?) guitarist Beren Matthews frequently lit up the sets. The band played every song from their 2024 album, It Leads to This, as well as a song from their just released E.P. And all the songs are from the Harrison era.
Highlights included “In Exile,” “White Mist,” “The Final Thing on My Mind” and whatever song you fancy, really. There wasn’t a song that called for a bathroom break, and that says a lot about both their performance and the quality of their new material.
Touring in the U.S. now through Dec. 11th.
Setlist:
Encore:
Randy McStine is opening for The Pineapple Thief again, the last during their 2018 tour. It’s truly a solo appearance, and it’s worth getting there early to watch as he builds the songs. There’s not a switch on the pedal board that wasn’t used. McStine toured with Porcupine Tree on their 2022 tour, has recorded with Marco Minnerman and has a number of solo recordings.
