mini-review
A mini-review for Gene. Gene, I never meant to rub your nose in the fact that Marillion won’t be coming to your town. Sorry, man. As penance, I shall proceed to briefly describe tonight’s gig.
It was an acoustic gig, mostly. Thanks to a couple of fans who had been following the band around (both on the internet and from show to show), I learned that it was not, in fact, completely acoustic. Steve Rothery would be using an electric guitar at times, and Steve Hogarth had some drum beats fed into his iBook (or whatever it was). The sense of excitement was huge. I got to The Mod Club an hour before the doors opened and there were already a dozen people in line. And everyone was talking about Marillion. From people who’d been fans from the first album, to recent converts. Finally we were let in, and everybody rushed to the stage. I managed to get into the second row from the stage, one person left of the centre. A good spot. The opening act, Jason Hart, did a lovely job, just him and a keyboard. He related a story about how Steve H heard his set, then went up to him and said (and Jason did a perfect Steve H impersonation), “Jason, you just out-progged us!” He did a nice set, but everyone was champing at the bit for the main attraction.
The stage went dark, and then h walked to the keyboard, which was centre stage, right at the front. The crowd went nuts. We cheered and hollered so much, despite being mildly shocked at the very different hairstyle he wore tonight -- something that could almost be described as an 80s 'do, if it were big and huge and teased, and it wasn't. h sat at the keyboard, waiting for us to stop. We didn’t. His face grew a great grin then, and he hugged himself, and as corny as it sounds, it felt like we were the ones hugging him. He then launched into a solo rendition of “Hollow Man”. Somebody had earlier said that h’s voice was shot from a gig a few nights ago, but we heard no indication of it. His voice was so expressive, so warm and enveloping. I knew this was going to be a great night.
“Cover My Eyes” followed, again solo on keyboards (the keyboard was set to piano for the whole night), and while he sang, I could tell that, although somewhere in his, I dunno, thirties or forties, when h was on stage singing, he was a little boy again. You could just see it in his face. An absolute delight in what he was doing.
Pete Trewavas came up on stage, sitting on the left side, up front. The crowd again went nuts with hooping and hollering as he picked up his bass guitar. He then launched into that funky bass line from “A Bell In The Sea”, and h sang along. A great number. I’ve heard this live version before, but it was something to see it in person – Pete really working that bass. It seems like he’s concentrating very hard, but then he looks up and flashes a big smile, and the crowd just eats it up.
Steve Rothery walked onstage after ABITS, and again, we were screaming. When he finally calmed down, the trio launched into “Dry Land”, a song to which I’ve never been partial (fairly dull compared to their other songs), but it was transformed from an okay pop song into something that felt full and lush, despite being only electric guitar, bass and a little bit of piano. It really pulled me in; it felt like one of the great Marillion songs.
Up until this point, h had been slowly removing his zip-up sweater, and here he finally removed it completely to reveal a black T-shirt with the words “I am in a promising local band” written on it. Great laughs from us, and a demand from two women: “Show us your t*ts!” Declining good-naturedly, he introduced the next song, “. . . a really beautifully written song . . . even if I didn’t write it.” It was “Sugar Mice”. Aaahhh. We had been waiting for this. And you couldn’t stop us from singing along, because, c’mon, we’re not gonna let anyone sing “Sugar Mice” by themselves! There was a moment near the end when it looked like h wanted to do a bit of vocal improvisation, but he simply couldn’t – we were singing too loudly! At the end, someone yelled out, “That was frickin’ awesome!” and someone else called out, “Thank you!” That last sentiment was felt by everyone there.
I haven’t picked up the new album Marbles yet (I’m still waiting to find the double-disc set) so I didn’t recognize any of the new songs. But from what I’ve heard, I’m ordering that 2-disc set today! They played the first of the new songs, “Fantastic Place”. It was gorgeous, but having heard the song only this once, I can’t comment too much. The crowd was singing along again, which doesn’t always happen – people mildly resent new songs being played in favour of hearing the older songs. Not Marillion fans; they knew every word, every guitar lick. It was really nice to see/hear.
h then talked about the album Brave and how much he liked the album, personally. He then announced that the trio would play a song or two from it. Or three. And then he wasn’t quite sure, so he peered at his iBook to find out what songs were coming next, and then we started shouting out, “Four!” “Five!” “Eight!” “Play the whole thing!” Alas, all we got was “Runaway”, which h sang with huge intensity, especially toward the end. I thought he was going to break down and collapse at the end of it!
end part one
