The Marillion Round Table

It's interesting browsing back through the pages in this appreciation thread and see how different people came to appreciate Marillion. My story goes back to the mid 80's. ( Aside from reading Tolkien's "Silmarillion" in the 70's ) Being a prog fan through the 70's the scene had gotten rather disheartening at the start of the next decade. There were few glimmers here and there. Got to see and really enjoy the "Discipline" era King Crimson, but they only really lasted 4 years and were gone. But Steve Hackett was still creating some decent music, and here is where my earliest connection to current Marillion started. Steve and band came to a club here in Montreal in 1983, and brought as part of his group a young(er) drummer by the name of Ian Mosley. It was a great show ( aside from the fire department stopping it 3/4 of the way through because the club owner had stuffed just too many fans into his venue ) and one quite memorable experience. ( I wouldn't see Steve perform again for 22 years ! ) Then around 1985 Kayleigh hit the airwaves, plus the occasional play of Lavender, so the name Marillion became known to me. Then they opened for RUSH at the Montreal Forum in 1986, and I thought that they were a half decent first act, but really nothing more than that. I was not " gob smacked" as they say, and I found the music somewhat clumsy and lacking much grace. I knew that Fish had left the band in the late 80's, and that Steve Hogarth was the new vocalist, but I had not been interested in them previously, so I saw no reason to look into it any further. A dozen or so years later on a friend ( Dave Fisher )of mine introduced me to Dream Theater and then Transatlantic, and then things became interesting. I explored Spock's Beard and The Flower Kings through the T-A connection, but did not go any deeper into Marillion aside from finally picking up Misplaced Childhood to see if it would strike my fancy at all, but it still came across to me as a bit lack-luster. In 2004 I was looking over the Marillion website and saw their advert and overview for the new Marbles album, and more out of curiosity than anything else I put my PayPal cash down and ordered the 2CD copy from Racket. Right from the start, with "The Invisible Man" , through "Ocean Cloud", and the finale "Neverland" I was captivated. The passion and adventure in the music, and the sheer conviction these guys play with was amazing. Sure, there were tons of borrowed influences, Pink Floyd, Midnight Oil, U2, REM, and definitely The Beatles, but the blend was really unique. I had to hear more, so back to Racket and in came "Anoraknophobia", "This Strange Engine", "Season's End", "Afraid of Sunlight", "Dot-Com", "Radiation", and the amazing "Brave".

All this great art to explore....and the problem was that it was all becoming quite a jumble in my head. What song was that again ? What album was it from ? It took me a good six months to begin to organize it mentally. Then I'd put the Ipod on shuffle and get all mixed up again. Such great music that I had been missing for so many years. It's sad to say the during all this confusion the band actually came to Montreal touring for Marbles and I missed the show ! It's six years later now, and I have filled in most of the rest of the discography, CD and DVD, Fish and H, studio and live. And the great opportunity to see them over three nights at the Montreal convention came around, and I just could not miss it. My wife Denise happily came along for the

first two shows, and long time prog buddy Dave for the third "long track" evening. All performances were great, even with "H" freaking out a bit due to a tech issue with his cricket bat during "This Strange Engine" ( or maybe he missed a cue and the samples were out of sequence...only Steve H and his technician know the truth ). Hey, H got to vent a bit by crowd-surfing, and our enthusiastic thread moderator Eric got to help out ( Kudos E-Dub ) .

So now I'm firmly in the camp. I look forward to new releases, and really think it's a great thing that we fans can help these artists by sponsoring them create such beautiful noise. If I'm lucky the 2011 North American convention will come back to our fair city of Montreal.