It’s not far short of 25 years since the very first time I saw Marillion live, at the 1982 Reading Festival. I’ve seen bands this year with members that weren’t even born back then. The Marillion of today are a very different band, of course; unlike many of their generation they’ve steadfastly refused to become a nostalgia act, keep moving with the times, and continue to put out challenging and relevant music.
This was the second of two nights at the Forum in Kentish town; last time I was there was for Uriah Heep something like eight years ago. It’s a converted cinema, with a capacity of about 2000, standing downstairs with seating upstairs, a rather grander venue that most of the places I’ve been to in the past couple of years, certainly far better than the grungy and run-down Astoria. The gig was a sell-out.
I’ve read a lot about ‘jaded London audiences’ by people claiming provincial gigs have a far better atmosphere. Well, this year I’ve done gigs in London, Manchester, Crewe, Preston, Cardiff, Swansea and York, in venues ranging from pubs to enormodomes. This was by far the most enthusiastic audience I’ve seen all year in any city and any size of venue. Perhaps this wasn’t a typical London gig; Marillion aren’t hip and trendy, so instead of poseurs and liggers it was filled with hardcore Marillion fans who had descended from all over the country and probably beyond. I myself had come down from Manchester, my brother from Swansea, and I bumped into Psychochicken who’d come all the way down from Glasgow.
Although it was being filmed for a DVD, the cameras didn’t get in the way of the enjoyment; they were well positioned so they weren’t blocking people’s views. There was once camera on a massive boom that kept swinging alarmingly low and fast over the audience; I kept wondering if it was going to take someone’s head off. Fortunately it didn’t. And the sound was superb; just about the right volume, not too loud, but clear with good separation.
And Marillion’s performance just blew us away. I’ve seen them at Manchester on the past three tours, those gigs were good, but this one was in a different league altogether. They opened with a dark and intense “Splintering Heart”, which began with Steve Hogarth alone on the stage back by the drum loop, before being joined by the rest of the band mid-song. From then on until the anthemic final encore of “Neverland” two-and-a-quarter hours later there was no let up in the intensity. Even the material from the somewhat patchy new album “Somewhere Else” came over strongly live.
The setlist was a great mix of old and new; Marillion have a great depth of back catalogue with very few ‘standards’, so you never quite know what to expect. Tonight we got a superb “Ocean Cloud”, a very atmospheric “Estonia”, and an absolutely barnstorming “Between You and Me”. One big surprise was “Sugar Mice”, an oldie from the ‘Scottish heavy metal band’ days, for which H sang the first line, and left the audience to sing the rest. We also sang “Happy Birthday to You” to Ian Mostly, to celebrate his fifty-splodgth.
Certainly in my top three gigs of the year so far, and the best Marillion gig I’ve been to in the past 20 years.
Heather Findlay
