overlap

An hour’s drive plus the potential for troubled traffic situation(s) plus early doors and no support band added up to nipping out of work early in the hope of hitting the road slightly earlier. The not entirely unforeseen traffic snarl-up meant I made it inside the venue forty five minutes after doors, but fifteen minutes before they came on stage. In the circumstances that counts as a thoroughly efficient day. The first time I saw Marillion, it was as the final act at the Cumbria rock festival in 1991, when I left home about ten on the friday night to catch a coach out of Victoria at 6am, so by the time Marillion came on I was riding a wave of sleep deprivation that didn’t quite translate into hallucinations, though I was certainly asleep on my feet during The Almighty’s set that preceded them - sorry Ricky! Accordingly my memory is a little hazy, but I do remember Steve ‘H’ Hogarth prancing around like a hyperactive pixie such that it was hard to watch anything else, and a splendid light show. The last (and only other) time I saw them was on the same day I foolishly gave blood in the afternoon, passed out in the blood wagon, endured an hour of somebody frantically ringing round to try and shift our tickets and eventually protested hard enough that just to shut me up we went anyway - I was hardly likely to be moshing or crowd surfing in any case, but in their case particularly so. Like I said, nothing more than forty five minutes delay is a resounding success! You can figure out from the above that I am not especially a fan, though I retained the memory of them being good live, it’s just there’s always priorities, and the last time they were within striking distance I already had a ticket for another gig that night. This one had been on my maybe list for a while. It’s to their credit they’ve been able to find ways to keep going on their own terms, and one of the benefits of no support band is having the stage properly set up for their own requirements in terms of lighting and the projection screen behind them. For possibly my first ever downstairs standing gig at that particular venue, I’m surprised how small it looks in that configuration, but that makes it all the more cosy and intimate. The lights go down, and the band take the stage separately, milking the build-up. Finally Steve Hogarth emerges in a floor length white or cream jacket, plentifully decorated in golden embroidery, and for the next thirty minutes I’m really struggling to work out who he reminds me of. I can’t really approach anything with a blank slate these days, and there’s a lot of reference points to wade through by now. The unfamiliar material, of which there is much, is delivered perfectly by Hogarth’s delicate voice and theatrical mannerisms, indeed it’s H as A Performer that would threaten to dominate things if the material wasn’t as good. I’m not especially a fan of Steve Rothery’s Gilmour type mood guitaring, but the Marillion sound is a very moody one which it suits perfectly. Mark Kelly’s keyboards provide a musical depth for Rothery to work around, and the rhythm section do exactly what they are required to do. Maybe it’s something to do with drummers called Ian, as the fluid economy of Ian Mosley is as unobtrusive as that of Deep Purple’s Ian Paice - there’s no danger of a ten minute drum and gong solo here, just drumming that provides the perfect backbone to the songs it underpins. Perhaps the surprise for me was bassman Pete Trewavas and the banter between him and H, although Pete can hardly blame H for pointing out how his cheeky chappy haircut makes him look a little like David Essex. I think the only tracks I really recognise are Beautiful, which really is, and Afraid Of Sunlight, though there may have been a couple more in there, I’m not sure. Hogarth is a consummate frontman rather than strictly a vocalist, and there’s no doubt he truly inhabits the things he’s singing. Just as per my distant recollections, it is a very visual show, and the films behind the band help to set the mood. Again, technology moves forward and the screen also carries moments from the show as it happens, with minicams picking out Kelly’s keyboards, Rothery’s guitar-playing, and at times there are two different views picking out H from below his chin. Somewhere in the middle of this, it comes to me. There’s a slight rounding to the features, naturally enough, but more than anything H reminds me of a younger Alice Cooper - it’s all in the facial expressions, and there’s no doubt he’s wrapped up in the song, singing right in the moment. As proven when he says ‘thanks for a great night, Liverpool’ before walking off at the end of the main set. Come on, I defy you not to see Alice Cooper here! He corrects himself when he returns for the encore, pointing out that Liverpool isn’t even on this tour, and it’s a great indication of the feelgood vibe of the show that it’s nothing other than funny. Strapping on a beautiful mottled pink guitar that looks like it should be on Jon Auer, the rest of the band join in as he runs through a rudimentary version of The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, before it all falls apart in shambolic yet thoroughly entertaining fashion. I haven’t even moaned about the dullards with inflatable objects, that’s how good it was, and dullards aside I managed to get a few decent pictures which will be on flickr soon enough when they weren’t waving them around and obstructing people’s view. I’m pleased to have a decent pictorial record of a show that needs to be watched as much as listened to, and though I’m not about to go following them on tours, I hope it’s not another thirteen years till I see Marillion again. * I Thank God You're So Fabulously Odd is from Whatever Is Wrong With You from Marillion's new album Happiness Is The Road

Labels: gigs, Marillion