It was back to the half-finished Academy One for the second night running, this time to see one of my all-time favourite bands, Marillion.
Unlike previous tours, there was no support, so Marillion played an extended show with two and a half hours of music split by an interval. The sound was an awful lot better than it had been for Within Temptation the night before. It wasn’t anything like as loud, but there was pretty good separation, with none of that muddy bottom end that marred the previous evening. And an enthusiastic crowd made for a great atmosphere.
One thing I love about this band is you never know what they’re going to play, but you still know it’s going to be good. Over the past twenty years or so they’ve steadfastly refused to paint themselves into a corner by trotting out the same ‘standards’ tour after tour, so there are no songs that audiences have come to expect, and might go away disappointed if they don’t hear.
This time round, the opened the first set with the first four songs from “Brave”. I wondered if they were going to play the entire album until the outtro of ‘Mad’ lead into ‘Fruit of the Wild Rose’ from “Anoraknophobia”. After that they ran through the many of the highlights of the past 19 years that they didn’t play on the last tour, described by Steve Hogarth as ‘songs about death and water’. ‘Out of This World’, the one about Donald Campbell, was fantastic. So was the oldie ‘Seasons End’, partly sung by the crowd. If the first set emphasised the darker, more intense side of the band’s music, the second set focussed on the bouncy rockier numbers, including a great version of ‘Cannibal Surf Babe’ continuing the death-and-water theme, ‘Most Toys’ (which actually works live) and another real oldie, ‘Hooks in You’. They also played a new number ‘Real Tears For Sale’. It’s difficult to judge a Marillion song on listen, but this one made a good first impression.
Encores were the firm favourites ‘Quartz’ and ‘Neverwhere’, with the band and crowd really on fire. The latter was the only number common to the last set I saw them play six months ago. How many other bands that have been going 25 years can you say that of?
If this didn’t quite top the fantastic gig at The Forum back in June, it came pretty close. Definitely one of those where the audience came out on a high.
