this could be interesting.
when did you first hear of porcupine tree/steve wilson.

1997 - steve wilson
through his work on 'sunsets on empire' by fish

2001 - porcupine tree
purchased 'recordings' and 'lightbulb sun' on the same day.
i was hooked so it was 'signify' and 'coma divine' after that.

2007 - porcupine tree [live]
'nil recurring' tour. house of blues. dallas
seen them once more. same awesome venue. 'the incident' tour.

I think Fish's "Sunsets On Empire" was the first time I saw his name in album credits (as Steve Wilson, I believe). Sometime in '98 I found a copy of "Signify" and immediately fell in love with it. Didn't find anything else by them until 2000 when I bought "Stupid Dream" and "Lightbulb Sun" and then I was fully hooked. Within a year I owned all the earlier recordings, and was amazed by "In Absentia." That became the first surround sound DVD that completely blew me away. I've been a devoted, buy-anything-he-releases-without-needing-to-hear-it-first fan ever since.

I don't remember the specific PT tours I saw, but I caught them once at The Bottom Line (capacity around 400) around 2000 or 2001, and a couple of years later at Irving Plaza (capacity around 1,000). The latter was probably on the "Deadwing" tour but I would need to check my ticket stubs to confirm.

2001, when I first started hanging out with JohnG. He turned me on to P Tree.

I heard "Waiting" on rock radio sometime in 1996 and liked it well enough to pick up Signify later that year, but I didn't see the band live until just prior to the release of In Absentia. I believe that was the first tour with Gavin Harrison.

I've been into them since around 1993 when I first heard em in the record store that I frequent.

Around 2004/2005 sadly I was a late bloomer. Then I proceeded to get every bloody thing they did. The bootleg from Fillmore around 2002/2004 is still one of my favourites

I used to be part of a bootleg group, some German guy put me onto them. He also introduced me to German group Jane who are another band I briefly went nuts about.

For me is was late 1999 to 2000 as I got turned on to them by chance. At that time I was on a Prog internet board where a guy in Brazil spoke highly of them, he sent me a sampler burn he did with other then neo-prog groups like Ozric Tentacles and Spocks Beard.

I took a blind chance and ordered Stupid Dream from Amazon (never heard the album) and one day put it on my CD player in the car on my way to work. Became an instant fan.

I did attend the famous Bottom Line concert in 2001 where they made their NY debut.

From this board. Don't remember the specifics. It would likely either be one of the King Crimson remasters, &/or thanks to JohnG (accurately) raving about him.