LIVE IN CARACAS

A live release from the Holidays In Eden tour, Live in Caracas was one of the first official live releases from the Steve Hogarth-fronted era of Marillion. It seems the band were still very reliant on Fish-era material to fill out the live set at this point of their career - though that said, perhaps for this one they decided to up the level of Fish stuff for the South American audience, who might not have had that many chances to hear it live with Fish. The future of the band is beginning to hover into focus, though - in a little bit of scatting to Rothery's acoustic guitar between Script for a Jester's Tear and Easter, H teases the opening lyrics to Living With the Big Lie from the forthcoming Brave.

Still, in terms of the performances here the band make a good effort - it's certainly one of the better live shows from the Eden period I've heard. Hogarth handles the Fish-era stuff well - though I'm inclined to agree with ZowieZiggy that H doesn't seem to "feel" the Misplaced Childhood tracks; he seems more comfortable with the Clutching at Straws material, in fact. The Holidays In Eden tracks on here are well-chosen and much improved for a year's worth of refinement on the road, so on the whole I'd say that this is a decent live release which holds up well next to the two Holidays-period shows on the Official Bootleg boxed set. That said, at points H sounds a bit tired and the band seem to be simply offering a lo-fi runthrough of the studio versions of the songs.