LIVE FROM LORELEY

By the time this show was recorded on the Clutching At Straws tour, this formula of Marillion was nearing it's ultimate conclusion. Separation between Fish and the rest of the band was causing turmoil, and Marillion was pretty much divided. Nonetheless, Marillion's Live At Loreley is still a valuable addition in anyone's collection.

Despite looking weathered and a bit sickley, Fish manages to captivate the crowd like he always seems to do. The older material is a collective fan favorite, with "Script For A Jester's Tear" being the obvious highlight.

Still, one can't help but notice the differences between Steve Rothery's dimeanor from this show and that of the Stoke Row DVD, which is the first recorded show with Steve Hogarth. On Stoke Row, Rothery is visibly happier and upbeat; however, on Loreley he hardly cracks a smile, and is content to remaining in the background. A very telling and poignant moment is during the Misplaced Childhood suite when Fish approaches Rothery, puts his arms around him and sings, "It's getting late, for scribbling and scratching on the paper. Something's gonna give under this pressure. And the cracks are already beginning to show." It's almost as if he's sending Rothery a message during this part of the song. Still, the tenderness of "Kayleigh" on through the triumphant "Heart Of Lothian" is a great moment during this performance.

Another highlight is the painful "Sugar Mice", and one of Rothery's more powerful solos. Much like "Afraid Of Sunlight" several years later, this song is wrought with pain that it makes the listener ache. That solo just never gets old.

One night I'm going to make it a point to watch Loreley and Stoke Row back to back. The disease that was ripping this band apart towards the end of 80's is obvious. There's hardly any interaction between Fish and the others, and they pretty much ceased to be a band. That being said, it's still crucial to have amongst your Marillion collection to witness the closing of one era, and the beginning of another.

Eight years have passed since the original recording of this great concert. Why did the record company release it that late ?

To please genuine Marillion fans ? To try and attract old fans and turned them into Marillion Mark II ones ? Who knows.

I just can tell you that this concert was a bery good one. You'll be able to SEE it on the great DVD "Live At Lorely" released in ...2004. You will experience one of the latest Fish concert with the band.

I can only recommend you to grab the DVD instead of this audio only document. You'll be able to SEE how great an entertainer Fish was as well as getting a bit more of Marillion genuine music. You'll still be able to convert the DVD into audio format if you want to do do.

Don't expect too much of this live set though. We are heading the big clash in the band and the tracklist take very little "old" songs into consideration. There have been better genuine Marillion live albums for sure, but again it is still valuable as a testimonial.

Most of the songs belong to their prog / pop repertoire (except "Script" of course); but they have popularized this genre, so...

Three stars.

NOTE: This review is of the 2CD reissue of Live at Loreley which for the first time includes the entire show.

The Loreley concert took place barely a month after the release of Clutching at Straws, and the complete concert recording includes excellent picks from that, the three prior albums with Fish, and tosses in the title track from the Market Square Heroes EP to boot. That being the case, it's a great live overview of the best of the Fish era of Marillion, and the inclusion of female backing singers - an embellishment of Marillion's sound originating in the Clutching At Straws albums - actually works really well, the band skilfully finding ways for them to enhance the older material whilst at the same time showing enough restraint to know when the backing singers need to be quiet. A great purchase all round.

Review Nº 778

This version of "Live From Loreley" is a very special edition of the series Sound & Vision, a double pack edition formed by a live CD plus a live VHS cassette and that was released in 1995. It was taken from a recorded live show performed at the Freilichtbuhne Loreley, St. Goarshausen, Germany on 18 July 1987. The recordings were made during the first part of the 1987 "Clutching At Straws" live tour, showing Marillion at the peak of their fame and most commercial success.

The line up on "Live From Loreley" features Fish (vocals), Steve Rothery (guitars), Mark Kelly (keyboards), Pete Trewavas (bass) and Ian Mosley (drums). The concert has also the participation of Cori Josias on backing vocals.

"Live From Loreley" is a live show that comprises songs from their four studio albums recorded by them up to that point, "Script For A Jester's Tear" from 1983, "Fugazi" from 1984, "Misplaced Childhood" from 1985 and "Clutching At Straws" from 1987. It includes also non-album's songs, which were released on their debut EP "Market Square Heroes".

The cover of the album uses the original 1987 concert poster designed by Mark Wilkinson, a British graphic designer which is best known by his cover art created for a number of British bands, like Marillion and Fish. It shows the central character from the cover of their single "Incommunicado", taken from their fourth studio album "Clutching At Straws".

From that live concert were released several live documents during various years. A video recording of this concert had first been released on a VHS tape in 1987, and re-released in 1995, then packaged together with an audio CD, including the soundtrack of the VHS tape. This video recording was re-issued on DVD in 2004. On 2009, Emi released the recordings for the fourth time. Then it was a digitally re-mastered double audio CD, including four tracks that had been omitted from the previous video and audio versions, "White Russian", "Fugazi", "Garden Party" and "Market Square Heroes". Still, the version of "White Russian" founded on the 2009 issue had previously been released as the B side of their single "Warm Wet Circles", the third single taken from Marillion's fourth studio album "Clutching At Straws".

This version of "Live From Loreley" has thirteen tracks that appeared on the CD and the VHS versions. The exception is "Incubus" appearing only available on the VHS version. The first track "Slainte Mhath" was released on "Clutching At Straws". The second track "Assassing" was released on "Fugazi". The third track "Script For A Jester's Tear" was released on "Script For A Jester's Tear". The fourth track "Incubus" was released on "Fugazi". The fifth track "Sugar Mice" was released on "Clutching At Straws". The sixth track "Hotel Hobbies" was also released on "Clutching At Straws". The seventh track "Warm Wet Circles" was also released on "Clutching At Straws". The eighth track "That Time Of The Night (The Short Straw)" was also released on "Clutching At Straws". The ninth track "Kayleigh" was released on "Misplaced Childhood". The tenth track "Lavender" was also released on "Misplaced Childhood". The eleventh track "Heart Of Lothian" was also released on "Misplaced Childhood". The twelfth track "The Last Straw" was released on "Clutching At Straws". The thirteenth track "Incommunicado" was also released on "Clutching At Straws".

"Live From Loreley" finds the band a few years later in their career as they were supporting the release of "Clutching At Straws". This would be Fish's last recording with the band before he embarked on his solo career. Filmed at an outdoor festival typesetting in front of some 18,000 fans we see a seasoned Marillion, confident in their music and in the eyes of their dedicated fans. This period showed the band at the peak of their career, though it was also a very awkward period for Marillion. While the concert took place a full year before Fish's departure from the band, you can really see how little interaction there was on stage between Fish and the rest of the band. One of the great things about this DVD is one gets to see just how good Marillion was in concert during Fish's era. The set list is a well chosen greatest hit set, and the band plays a tight concert. The sound quality is reasonable. So while it's not the best imaginable concert to release on DVD, it's a great document of its time. There are no extra features to speak of but it's a very enjoyable video to watch.

Conclusion: This is the third time that I reviewed this live concert. Some time ago, I had already reviewed the digitally re-mastered double audio CD version of 2009 and a short time ago I also reviewed the DVD re-issued version of 2004. And as I wrote before, when I reviewed both versions, we are in presence of an excellent live show made by one of my favourite bands, especially in the era of Fish. This live show represents, in my humble opinion, one of the best live musical moments ever produced by Marillion, the other is "Recital Of The Script". It shows a mature band that knows what is doing on stage and where Fish shows clearly that he is the absolute mastery of the stage. The track selection is excellent and in relation to the sound and the video images I must say that they're very good, in the same line of the live concert itself. Unfortunately, "Live From Loreley" represents also the swan song of Fish as a Marillion's band member.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)