After a half-hour wait outside the venue with the queues mounting up, I also made a point of buying his new album 'The Thirteenth Star' after hearing rave reviews about it. There was a decent enough support slot from blues-rock act Stone Soul River who were well received, but it was clear that the audience (predominantly middle aged, it has to be said, but there were some other younger faces other than my own, thankfully!!) were there to see a living legend of prog in action.

 

For a while last week, this gig seemed touch and go as Fish was forced to cancel a few concerts due to contracting viral laryngitis. However, he thankfully recovered and it's great to see him back to the top of his game. I'd heard various grumbles about his voice nowadays on forums, and it's true the old Marillion material is performed in a lower register, but very few vocalists are able to fully match what they were capable of in younger days anyway, so I was perfectly fine with his vocals.

 

The comedian Mel Smith once observed that most rock stars would love to be comedians, and Fish manages to pull both off with considerable aplomb. Right from the very funny slide-show introduction with a unique historical perspective on the 20 years since 'Clutching At Straws' came out, it was clear that spirits and humour would be high. Fish's anecdotes, ranging from his delight over Hibernian's 3-2 victory over Celtic and the ineptitude of the Scottish rugby team earlier on the same day to the pros and cons of being tall and light-hearted joshing with audience members over Welsh places, customs and food, had the whole audience in great spirits. Fish seemed to be having a great a time as we were.

 

Of course, though, it's the music that made his reputation, and right from the aggressive, energetic guitar-driven intro of 'Slainte Mhath' that kicked off proceedings, it was obvious that the audience were in for a great show. Whilst I have to confess to only having a passing knowledge of Fish's solo material only owning 'Bouillabaise', I'll certainly be remedying that. There was not one track which was weak throughout the whole set, and no dip in quality between his solo material and the classic 'Clutching At Straws' songs. I was particularly impressed with the performance of apocalyptic blues-rocker 'The Perception Of Johnny Punter', the hypnotic 'So Fellini' and the new tracks 'Manchmal' and 'Circle Line', whilst 'Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors' had a show-stopping walk through the crowd from Fish during the eerie, ominous introductory section.

 

'Clutching At Straws' provided some of the other highlights, particularly the prowling 'Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time Of The Night' triptych, the brooding 'White Russian' and a mass sing-along to 'Sugar Mice', whilst 'Incommunicado' was the perfect finish as the last track of a two-song encore (the other being a heartfelt rendition of 'Cliche').

 

If I had one complaint, it would be that the sound mix was somewhat overbearing throughout and it was occasionally hard to make out individual instruments during the louder sections (the keyboard solo in 'Incommunicado' I couldn't hear a note of) but perhaps this grumble was due to my relative inexperience of gig-going. Other than that, we really did get a great performance from one of the true latter-day prog legends.

 

The complete set list was (I think I have the order right):

 

 

 

And for a general idea of the performance and general joie de vivre last night, here's a clip of 'Sugar Mice' someone's put on YouTube.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-_mVCxCiM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-_mVCxCiM