From: jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
Subject: Marillion Info and Concert Review
Reply-To: jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 10:49:02 GMT


Just got back from the Marillion concert.  It's 3:10AM, my ears are still
ringing, and I'm tired, but thought the net would be interested in
hearing what Marillion had to say.  The interesting info below was
gathered after the concert.  I personally asked these questions and
these are the answers that I got from the band members (I talked to
all of them).

1)  Marillion will be playing an acoustic set Thursday at Noon at a CD
    store in Cupertino, or somewhere in the area.  Rothery, Kelly,
    Trewavas, and Hogarth were all asked for specifics and none of
    them knew the name of the store, but they all guaranteed that
    there *is* going to be an acoustic set there!

2)  Marillion will next come to the United States in July (Rothery,
    Hogarth, and Mosley all said this).  They will definitely be doing
    some East Coast gigs, and hope to play at least one West Coast.
    Hogarth said that they were *definitely* doing some West Coast,
    Rothery said they were going to *try* and do some West Coast
    dates.

3)  Pete said that he really enjoys playing "The Party" and thinks
    it's more fun than any of the other songs that they're doing this
    tour.

4)  Pete said "I saw Fish in London and I thought he was great.  Good
    show."  When asked about the EMI reunion tour he tensed and
    replied, "We heard this.  We sent him a fax saying that it would
    be a step backwards.  I wish him the best, but Marillion will not
    be doing anything with Fish."  When asked if he was talking with
    Fish again, he said "I've been busy lately."

5)  Mark Kelly was kind of quiet, didn't say much, and managed to
    ignore most of the questions.  

THE CONCERT

Variety Arts Theater, Los Angeles, CA, USA
April 14th, 1992.  8:00PM-11:00PM

The opening band was Dada (as in the artistic "dada" movement).  They
were pretty good, had a favourable audience response, and sound
similar to many of the alternative bands that are around (REM and
Nirvana comparisons come to mind).  They played for about an hour.

If you're in San Jose or San Francisco and *DON'T* want to see a
listing/review of the concert, QUIT NOW and SAVE the file for reading
after the concert.

From memory, I think the playlist was:

	Splintering Heart
	Holidays in Eden
	Waiting to Happen
	Easter
	Warm Wet Circles
	At That Time of the Night
	No One Can
	This Town
	The Rake's Progress
	100 Nights
	A Collection
	Kayleigh
	Slainte Mhath
	The Party
	Cover My Eyes
	King of Sunset Town
	This Space

	1st ENCORES

	Hooks in You
	Incommunicado

	2nd ENCORE

	Garden Party

Splintering Heart starts with Hogarth striding out of the fog in a
trenchcoat as a sequencer/tape spits out the keyboard riff.  By the
time he gets to the "And it goes like this" part, the rest of the band
is waiting and ready.  Halfway through, one of his digiglove's
switches stops working, so he does the rest of his line on keyboard
(he plays a lot of keyboards during the concert--occasionally he has
the lead lines).  Mosley sat out on quite a few--he also seemed very
bored, but very professional.

Waiting to Happen was almost an acoustic piece with Rothery doing most
of the song on 12-string.  Easter was also done with 12-string and was
very good with some audience participation.  "Warm Wet Circles/At that
Time of the Night" got the audience going--lots of cheers, sung
lyrics, applause.

"This Town/The Rake's Progress/100 Nights" started with Steve H
ranting and pacing the stage before the band started.  The ending of
"100 Nights" (my favorite part of the new album) was particularly
powerful.

Steve H. began introduced the members of the bands, and ended on Steve
R. who played the familiar into into Kayleigh.  The audience went
beserk as they did a decent job of the song.

Slainte Mhath was very powerful and moving.  But I pity the people
who missed Fish's even more powerful and moving version.

And that's basically what it all comes down to:  it was a GREAT
concert.  But for those who had seen Marillion when Fish was still
with them, there is the feeling of lost potential.  Don't get me
wrong:  Marillion did a great job, especially on the new stuff (taking
the material off the last two and making it sound GREAT).  But on the
old stuff, Fish is missed.  As Pete said "We wrote the music...Fish
wrote the lyrics."  And musically it's still the same.  Pete also said
"Being the lead vocalist is like playing a Shakespearian role:
different people bring different interpretations to the role".
Hogarths interpretations work, but they are different from Fish's, so
those that prefer Fish's may not like Hogarth's.  But they are both
excellent vocalists...

A point of interest:  Garden Party was introduced by Hogarth as being
about Cambridge, and about a party that occured there.  Five
schoolboys, "uh...Steve [pointing at Rothery], Pete [pointing at
Pete], Mark [ditto], Michael, and Derek [audience goes crazy yelling,
chanting "Fish" etc for a few seconds] were at a party.  But in
Cambridge they don't have *ordinary* parties.  They have garden
parties."  What was interesting was when Steve H said "Derek", Mark
Kelly played the Dragnet Dum-da-dum-dum riff.  I didn't really think
that was necessary.  As Rothery said "[Fish and Marillion] lost a
lot of money over [the fight concerning song rights]".  The two
parties should try and act mature and carry on.  This Fish-bashing
isn't necessary.  

I think anyone who'd like to see a reunion concert should write
EMI and let them know.  Even though the band is convinced that it
would be a move backwards, I don't think it would be (especially if
they only played the Hammersmith for a single show).  I think doing
a concert like that might help heal some of the friction between 
the two factions.

It's late, I'm rambling, so good night.

It was a great show...

P.S.  Hogarth has heard that we talk about Marillion through our computers
      and thinks that it's "interesting".  No, I didn't bring it up :)
--
jester@crash.cts.com			"Remember the Jester"--Fish