Live Performance Reviews - An introduction to Marillion, Helsinki,Finland

I noted this well known group giving out a concert in the local Tavastia club, and as I had not yet heard any of their music (?!), I decided that there can’t be a better way of getting me to know their stuff. The promised acoustic oriented approach also sounded promising, and my intuition was correct, I liked the event and their music very much.

First I paid attention to the voice of the lead singer; Really talented and emotional, fitting wonderfully to the mellow, romantic and soulful music of the band. The compositions were both accessible melodically, but also similarly free from tight commercial concepts, being same time coherent but coming clearly directly from the heart of the performers, possibly justifying a term “artistic soft rock” being related to them. Some textures of the music associated for me the sound of some classic 80’s ballads (in a very positive way). Often the songs were kind of tension buildings; Beautiful weaves of chord progressions as a surface for beautiful melodies and lyrics full of hope. The rhythm changes were interesting, happening instantly without neurotic preparations and middle-sections. The sounds were really good, not too loud or silent but perfect. Also as a rare feature, I could hear the lyrics well, and these not too hard but still meaningful and warm poems were very understandable instantly. I though, when before have I heard such beautiful music live on stage, and similarly the conceptual ideas of the lyrical message gets registered to my head, processing a synthesis aesthetical and emotional experience. I’m still thinking and have not find an answer. It was nice to hear background stories about the songs. The musicians were also really sympathetic; being were warm and direct personalities communicating with the really enthusiastic audience, which maybe tested the limits of good taste but luckily not possibly going too far (I feared that soon somebody jumps to the stage to hug the musicians).

There were two sets and two encores, doing ca. three hours of music with few pauses. I believe the gig was really successful, and created much happiness to the attended fans, and I believe also the musicians were taken by the rejoicing caused by their performance. I decided I’ll get first a CD of this new stuff the group performed, and then with time familiarize myself with other material from their large discography. Maybe I’ll also manage to teach my heart to be a ball which would run uphill.

Edit: Updated the pic