Porcupine Tree – first time in Romania at ARTmania Festival 2023
by November 23, 2022Porcupine Tree, successfully reunited after more than a decade, will play ARTmania festival 2023
Successfully reunited after a decade long hiatus, British band Porcupine Tree is coming to Romania for the first time, to play at ARTmania Festival 2023. The festival takes places between 28-30 July 2023.
The supergroup, fronted by celebrated British musician Steven Wilson, will grace the festival’s main stage, in Piata Mare, Sibiu.
Porcupine Tree was set up by Steven Wilson in 1987. The band’s current lineup is Richard Barbieri (keys), who was also part of the new wave group Japan, and Gavin Harrison (drums), who also collaborates with Pineapple Thief as well as with King Crimson.
Both Steven Wilson and Gavin Harrison have been part of ARTmania Festival’s lineup with their other projects, Wilson as a solo artist in 2018 and Harrison with Pineapple Thief in 2022, respectively.
In Porcupine Tree’s history, Steven Wilson has been the only composer for the band’s first years. In 1993, he began to collaborate with several musicians, among whom we have to mention Richard Barbieri (keys), Colin Edwin (bass), and Chris Maitland (drums). The first lineup held until 2022, when Gavin Harrison replaced Chris Maitland.
Over the years, the group made musical changes as well. They’ve gone from psychedelic rock, through space rock, experimental rock, prog rock, alternative, all the way to progressive metal.
Porcupine Tree has been largely inactive on the musical scene between 2010 and now, as Steven Wilson nursed his solo project and the other members took care of their own parallel projects. Steven Wilson, Richard Barbieri, and Gavin Harrison has continued to work on and off, in secret, and a little over a decade later „Closure / Continuation”, their latest album, was finally presented to the public.
The album, which is the result of 12 years of creative work, was released in June 2022. The successful release was followed by a string of successfully sold out European arenas, with Randy McStine (guitar) and Nate Navarro (bass) joining them. Among the great successes, we’ll mention the recent Wembley Arena concert, where Porcupine Tree played for 12.000 people.
„Right now we feel it probably is in the top three best records that we’ve ever made, alongside In Absentia and Fear of a Blank Planet. It’s pure Porcupine Tree but at the same time it sounds fresh, there’s a lot of space there.”, the band says about “Closure/Continuation”.
Each new release saw Porcupine Tree exploring new musical ideas, their expansive music shifting from pastoral psychedelic rock and ambient electronic soundscapes to experimental pop and propulsive metal. Later releases like 2007’s GRAMMY®Award-nominated Fear of a Blank Planet and 2009’s The Incident– saw Porcupine Tree effortlessly melding distinctive genres to create a groundbreaking musical universe all their own.
Since „On the Sunday of Life…”, (1992) and up to „Closure / Continuation” (2022), Porcupine Tree released „Up the Downstair” (1993), „The Sky Moves Sideways” (1995), „Signify” (1996), „Stupid Dream” (1999), „Lightbulb Sun” (2000), „In Absentia” (2002), „Deadwing” (2005), „Fear of a Blank Planet” (2007), and „The Incident” (2009). Ten live albums and five compilations accompany them.
For ARTmania’s 16th edition, included in “Musical Bridges through Cultural Entrepreneurship”, run by ARTmania Events with Inferno Metal Festival & Music Conference and Midgardsblot Festival, two of Norway’s most important rock events, the bands Emperor (Norway), SAMAEL (Switzerland), Pain of Salvation (Sweden) have been confirmed and more names will be announced in the coming weeks.
Passes for ARTmania Festival 2023 can be purchased on the official website (www.artmaniafestival.ro) and on iabilet.ro for 400 lei/piece + taxes (80€ + taxes).
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„„Musical Bridges Through Cultural Entrepreneurship” is financed with the support of EEA Grants within the RO-CULTURE Programme. The project has a non-reimbursable value of 980.230,30 lei (198.102,36 euro) and is carried out over a period of 12 months.
The EEA Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway towards a green, competitive and inclusive Europe. There are two overall objectives: reduction of economic and social disparities in Europe, and to strengthen bilateral relations between the donor countries and 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics. The three donor countries cooperate closely with the EU through the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). The donors have provided €3.3 billion through consecutive grant schemes between 1994 and 2014. For the period 2014-2021, the EEA Grants amount to €1.55 billion. More details can be found on www.eeagrants.org și www.eeagrants.ro.
RO-CULTURE Programme is implemented in Romania by the Ministry of Culture through the Project Management Unit. The Programme aims at strengthening social and economic development through cultural cooperation, cultural entrepreneurship and cultural heritage management. The total budget amounts to almost 34 million EUR. For more details access www.ro-cultura.ro.
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ARTmania Festival, the first Romanian festival that developed the idea of combining art and entertainment in Romania, is a platform dedicated to promoting all forms of artistic expression inspired by rock culture.
Since 2006, ARTmania has established itself as the main regional promoter of contemporary music projects. Music is the core component, but it is only a part of the experience that ARTmania Festival wanted to offer to art lovers from Romania and abroad. From the very beginning, ARTmania was conceived as a cultural platform to offer the public various events and ways to experience different forms of artistic expression, such as concerts, exhibitions, book launches and film screenings.
As the longest-running rock festival in Romania and one of the brands with the longest tradition on the regional cultural scene, ARTmania has shaped its own identity through a bold concept and a special environment: the Great Square of one of the most beautiful medieval fortresses in Eastern Europe.
ARTmania is constantly exploring new directions, building on the experience of previous editions where many important artists have performed. Among them are Steven Wilson, Peter Hammill, Serj Tankian, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater, Opeth, Die Toten Hosen, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, HIM, The Gathering, The Sisters of Mercy, Anathema, Apocalyptica, Lacuna Coil, Helloween, Lacrimosa, Poets of the Fall and Deine Lakaien.
