Voyage 35

First Rehearsals

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I thought I’d write something to express how I am feeling after the first Voyage 35 rehearsals, but perhaps the picture below sums things up better than words can.

What seemed like a crazy idea at the start is taking shape very well. Aside from everything else, it’s also been great to play and actually hang out with John Wesley again for the first time in way too long.

There’s a lot of ground to cover yet and there will hopefully be a few surprises, so I don’t want to give too much away here just yet. Suffice to say we have been working on a set of some well tested, much requested repertoire, mixed in with a few lesser visited areas of the discography.

It’s been a lot of fun actually revisiting the music in a “live” (…even though a rehearsal) environment, especially after all the discussions and pre-rehearsal that we’ve all been doing individually. There’s never been any intention for Voyage 35 to just do some kind of carbon copy, so our approach is to breathe life and personality in to the music in the same way the original PT line-up did back in the 1990’s, translating the original recordings into something special. There was always a flexible enough framework in the music that allowed this to happen and to my mind, that’s still the case. There is a definite chemistry between us “Voyagers” and we are exploring the territory between respecting the original material but also adding some new angle and personality and showing things in a fresh light.

Anyway, with apologies for recycling anything you may have seen earlier on Instagram, I’ve posted a few pictures below…

John Wesley’s latest set up includes his latest PRS guitar paired with a brand new Bad Cat amplifier.

We have drums…and a very fine drummer to play them. To be announced in due course.

Also….

Keyboards, yes we’ll have them…

As for me, my recently serviced Wal fretless, well used and scarred, and which I played pretty much exclusively during the early Porcupine Tree years*, is the most likely candidate for the bass I’ll be using on the upcoming tour dates.

I am lucky enough to have a number of fantastic basses, but this is the instrument I’ve probably played more than any other, and as well as fitting the music - I always felt it was a great fit for the earlier, spacier Porcupine Tree material - it still sounds great and feels fantastic to play.

We hope to have some more news on Voyage 35 coming up very soon, I would encourage anyone interested to keep an eye on the socials:

https://linktr.ee/therealvoyage35

https://www.bandsintown.com/a/15608557

I am very much looking forward to the next developments - Onwards….!

*Not forgetting the much more recent Baldock Transmission!