I’ve already reviewed the event as a whole here and here, Here are a few more pictures of the weekend. starting with the opening act, Alex Cromarty, with a guitar rather than behind a drumkit.

Si Wright and Pete Harwood playing as Morpheus Rising Acoustic.

Matthew Powell fronting Shadow of the Sun.

Every gig I go to seems to have this guy on bass. He was playing bass for Dave Kerzner in March, and the Heather Findlay band in April. Here he is again with Halo Blind.

Anne-Marie Helder joined Halo Blind on stage for The Dogs, the one song they played from the first album when she was a member of the band.

Dave Ormston assumed the role of master of ceremonies, announcing the headline act of the day.

Yatim and Anne-Matie rocking out during their barnstorming set.

Sarah Dean on Sunday as the opening act.

Anne Marie and Sarah with Luna Rossa.

Dinet Poortman with the Dave Foster band.

Luke Machin shredding with Kiama. Do they make left-handed air guitars?

Panic Room’s closing set blew the roof off. This picture sums up why “I Am A Cat” is so great live.

“The Dave” as he is known has more than made his mark as Panic Room’s guitarist now.

All good things must come to an end, and I travel home from Bilston so many times that, to quote the Marillion song, This Train Is My Life.

After the excitement of the first day of the Panic Room convention, everybody was back for more at the next day. with perhaps a few more people who had one-day tickets for the Sunday to swell the crowd. There seemed significantly more people that there had been the day before.

Sunday began, as had Saturday, with an acoustic solo performance, this time from harper and folk singer Sarah Dean. She played a beautiful set combining original numbers and traditional standards, interspersed with some entertaining song introductions.

Luna Rossa were eagerly awaited. They’re Panic Room’s acoustic alter-ego, the core songwriting duo of Anne-Marie Helder and Jon Edwards with a different supporting cast. The music clearly comes from the same place, but the stripped-down intimacy of the presentation is quite different from Panic Room’s widescreen rock, and showcases Anne-Marie’s remarkable vocals all the more. On their brief tour in December they were accompanied by Sarah Dean on harp and Andy Coughlan on bass, but for this gig Yatim Halimi stood in on bass, and Dave Foster also joined them for a few numbers on guitar. Even though it was four-fifths Panic Room in terms of personnel, the vibe was totally different, with songs drawn from the two Luna Rossa albums plus an emotive cover of Abba’s “Winner Takes All”. Dave Foster added some tasteful blues guitar to enhance songs like “Dark Room”. It was stunningly beautiful set.

That performance would have been hard for anyone else to follow, so it was probably a good thing that there followed an extended break in the music. What we did have was a Q and A session with the band, hosted by compère Dave Ormston. Questions included things like “If you had to throw away all albums bar one, which one would you keep”. Jon’s answer to that one was “Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert”.

Then it was back to the music. The Dave Foster band was another to feature more than half of Panic Room on the stage, with Yatim again on bass and Jon on keys, though with Ninet Poortman on vocals and Leon Parr on drums they had a quite different sound. Sharing the groove-orientated rhythm section with The Steve Rothery Band gave them a similar feel to that band, and Ninet Poortman impressed as a singer, Most of the set came from Dave Foster’s excellent album “Dreamless”, with “Paradox” from Dave’s earlier album “Gravity”. Anne-Marie joined them on “Brahma”, one of the high spots of the set, before Ninet returned to finish with a powerful “Black Sunrise”.

The supergroup Kiama are an interesting band. There’s a lot of talent and a lot of good musical ideas, but on record they didn’t quite manage to transcend the sum of the parts. Expanded to a six-piece with Magenta’s Dan Nelson on bass and a female backing singer they were a lot more impressive live. They went from Zeppelinesque hard rock to atmospheric balladry recalling latter-day Marillion. Dylan Thompson more than proved he’s got what it takes to front a band, including Rock God looks and some very heart-on-sleeve lyrics. Luke Machin is a phenomenal guitarist reeling off some jaw-dropping solos. They’re not quite the hard rock band they initially promoted themselves as, though the best moments were still the points where they did rock out, like opener “Cold Black Heard”. This may be another band from whom the best is yet to come.

And finally came Panic Room. The first night had felt like a greatest hits show, but a second set with just as many great songs showed just how strong a songbook Panic Room have built up after just four albums. Kicking off with the electric version of “Song for Tomorrow”, the set included a superb taken on “Picking up Knives” with some splendid electric piano, “Tightrope Walker”, the always bonkers “I am a Cat”, “Promises”, the spine-tingling set closer “Dust” and an anthemic “Satellite” as an encore. The band were absolutely on fire from beginning to end, and the atmosphere electric. It wasn’t the tightest Panic Room set of all time, but there was an exuberance about the whole thing that was amazing to be part of. This is what live music is all about.

The whole weekend was a wonderful experience, and there is already talk of a repeat event next year. It showcased a host of bands and side-projects that deserve wider exposure, topped with two spectacular sets from the band themselves. It was also a great gathering of the band’s most dedicated fans from around the country, with plenty of times between bands to catch up with old friends. It was also good to see Marillion’s Steve Rothery in the audience too. Panic Room as a support for next year’s Marillion convention, Rothers? You know you want to!

In addition to their regular gigs of 2016, Panic Room decided to do something rather different and far more ambitious at Bilston’s Robin 2. Taking a similar format to the successful and now legendary Marillion weekends, they booked the venue for two full days. They would play a headline set each night, with an array of support acts all of whom had some connection to the band. With an afternoon start and five sets each day, it amounted to a Panic Room-curated mini-festival.

Things kicked off with a solo set from Alex Cromarty, best known as a drummer in more bands you can count, but here performing as a singer-songwriter. He began with a great cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Dancing in the Moonlight” leading into as set of largely original songs from his forthcoming solo album.

Morpheus Rising have supported Panic Room many times, and were originally planning to play a full electric set. But unfortunately their drummer exploded in a freak gardening accident, or something like that. So Simon Wright and Pete Harwood instead played as a stripped down acoustic duo. It says a lot about the quality of their songwriting that material written for twin guitar metal works in this format, even though Simon’s vocals sometimes came over a little fragile. But the highlights were a couple of completely new songs, both of which came over extremely well. The band have both an acoustic and a new electric album in the pipeline, and at least one of those new songs is to appear on both.

Shadow of the Sun were a very late addition to the bill. They’ve been away a long time and been through a few changes, with the departure of their original bassist, frontman Matthew Powell now doubling up on bass. and a new second guitarist Matt O’Connell bringing them back to a quartet. Unfortunately Matt couldn’t make the gig for urgent family reasons, so hats off to stand-in Lewis Spencer who came in at very short notice and played what must have been largely improvised lead guitar parts without any rehearsal. Playing a mixture of songs from their four-year old début “Monument” and brand-new material, their blend of metal and alternative rock is still something of a work in progress, though Matthew Powell is considerably less awkward on stage now he has a bass to play. Dylan Thompson is starting to look like a younger Mikhael Ã…kerfeldt, and the couple of times he launched into solos he sounded a little like Ã…kerfeldt too. It will be interesting to see how this band develop, and how they sound with their proper guitarist.

Halo Blind are part of the Panic Room family, since both Anne-Marie Helder and Gavin Griffiths were members of the first incarnation of the band, though they’re now one of the many bands with Alex Cromarty behind the drums. They impressed a lot supporting The Heather Findlay band back in April. Tonight saw them lift things to another level in intensity. Again the bulk of the set came from their most recent album “Occupying Forces”, and it was a thing of mesmerising atmospheric beauty, with fragile vocal melodies and swirling effects-laden psychedelic guitar. Anne-Marie guested on “The Dogs” from the first album, which proved one just highlight of many. This had to be one of the best sets they’ve played to date.

Then it was time for Panic Room themselves for the first of their two headline sets of the weekend. They proceeded to pull out all the stops with a spectacular set including material from across all four albums. There were many of the usual favourites; “Apocalypstick”, “5th Amendment”, the jazzy “Chameleon” with Anne-Marie’s flute solo, and the hard rocking “Hiding the World” An acoustic interlude included the arrangements of “Song for Tomorrow” and “Screens” from the unplugged album “Essence”. They finished the main set with an epic “Nocturnal” before encoring with “Sandstorms” and covers of All About Eve’s “Road to your Soul” and Led Zep’s “Kashmir”. This was a roof-lifting performance even by Panic Room’s standards, and with so many of the regular standards in the set it left you wondering what they were saving for the second night.

Just one week to go now….

Panic Room have announced Shadow of the Sun as the final band for the Panic Room Weekend in May. They will be playing on Saturday May 21st.

The band have been rather quiet of late, but are back with a new lineup featuring Matt O’Connell John on guitar, and will be playing some brand new material alongside songs from their 2012 debut “Monument”

Aside from the two headline sets from Panic Room themselves, the weekend now includes the following:

• Sarah Dean
• Alex Cromarty
• The Dave Foster Band
• Halo Blind
• Kiama
• Morpheus Rising
• Shadow of the Sun
• Luna Rossa

Doors open at 3pm both days, and with five bands each night the whole weekend has taken on the dimensions of a festival.

Tickets are still available from The Robin box office.

Panic Room have added Kiama to the bill of the Panic Room Weekend, playing the penultimate set on Sunday 22nd May, joining Luna Rossa, Morpheus Rising, Halo Blind, Sarah Dean, The Dave Forster Band, and of course Panic Room themselves.

Kiama are the supergroup comprising Robert Reed of Magenta, Dylan Thompson of Shadow of the Sun and The Reasoning, Andy Edwards of IQ and Frost*, and Luke Machin of  Maschine and The Tangent.

First, Panic Room guitarist Dave Foster with his own band, including drummer Leon Parr and vocalist Dinet Poortma, along with one or two members of Panic Room, playing material from his two solo albums “Gravity” and the forthcoming “Dreamless”.

And on the Sunday Night, Halo Blind, the project from singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Johnson, featuring Panic Room’s Gavin Griffiths on drums. Although she wasn’t on their most recent album “Occupying Forces”, Anne-Marie Helder was a member of an earlier version of the band, and it would not be a surprise for her to join them on stage.

Panic Room have announced the Panic Room Weekend, a two-day event at Bilston Robin 2 on the weekend of 21st and 22nd May 2016.

Full details will be announced in due course, but the weekend promises two full-length headline sets from Panic Room themselves with completely different songs each night. There will also be performances from the acoustic side-project Luna Rossa and a host of yet-to-be announced guests with connections to the band. I would be very surprised if we didn’t see a solo acoustic set from Anne-Marie at some point. It all promises to be a great gathering of the band’s fandom.

Tickets cost £40 for the full weekend, with day tickets for £25, and doors open at 3pm each day, so there will be a lot of music. Tickets are now on sale from The Robin 2 website.