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Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson at work in the studio

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Grammy-nominated UK progressive rockers Porcupine Tree recently ended their long tour in support of the band's 2009 LP The Incident in fine style, playing their biggest UK headline show to date at the Royal Albert Hall.

Just a few hours before stage time, we caught up with Porcupine Tree mainman Steven Wilson to find out what's next for the band, discuss drummer Gavin Harrison's recent placing at number three in Rhythm magazine's Greatest Drummer Of The Last 25 Years poll, and find out what Wilson regards as must-hear albums for people looking to broaden their musical horizons.

You must be excited about the Royal Albert Hall show tonight... Should fans expect any special guests or surprises, or will you approach it like any other Porcupine Tree show?

Steven Wilson: "Well, neither in a way. We're not having any special guests. The show is all about the band really. We didn't want to turn it into a sort of 'lovey' fest, you know, bringing out guests and stuff. But what we did want to do is surprise people with the selection of material, so we're playing a lot of music that we have never played – or that we have certainly not played for 10 years or more.

"I think that Porcupine Tree are one of those bands that people discover - new fans discover us with every album and they tend to go back and explore this extensive back catalogue, so they do get to hear a lot of music that we – for many years – haven't played. So I think the idea with this special show and the one we did in New York a few weeks ago was to go back and pull out a lot of material from the early, early days that perhaps people would never expect that they would get to hear us play live.

"So it's certainly not 'another show' for us, apart from the fact it's a London show so all our friends and family will come too so that always makes it a little bit more special. And a little bit more stressful 'cause you know the one show you don't wanna trip over your guitar lead or fall flat on your face or break a string is when you're playing in front of all your friends and family. So there's that extra level anyway, but also the fact that we're playing all of this music that almost seems like a lifetime ago in a way.

"We were playing this stuff in the '90s in small clubs sometimes to 20, 30 people so it's kind of surreal to be playing it in front of four or five thousand people. That music's never been in heard in that context before. And I'm happy to say it it does work; it fills the space. In a way I was thinking in terms of 'stadium rock' (laughs) even when I was playing to 10 people. The music was always kind of designed, in a way, to be big and epic."

Have you witnessed any classic Royal Albert Hall performances as a member of the audience?

"I haven't seen a lot of bands here. I came to see Opeth here as a guest which was a fantastic night. They did something very similar to us - they stole our idea (laughs) - no we stole theirs, Noo I think we both came up with the same kind of idea at the same time (laughs) anyway, but apart from that, I think I've seen Dave Gilmour play here which was amazing also, and I don't think I'd ever been here before that.

"I think it's one of those places that I've probably driven past a million times and never actually seen a show here. It's only the Gilmour show and the Opeth show I've seen here so far. Of course you see it on TV all the time but that's not what it looks like…"

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