FELLINI NIGHTS

As one might expect, Fellini Nights is a live album recorded during the Fellini Days tour - specifically, it offers a show from the Amsterdam leg of that tour. This finds Fish with a strong set of material from another creatively successful album to showcase, as well as old favourites - in fact, by this point in his solo career it was more than viable to fill an entire setlist without including any Marillion material, and that's what happens here.

In the liner notes Fish is enthusiastic about the Amsterdam Paradiso as a venue, praising its intimate atmosphere - and I'm sure that contributed to making this a memorable evening. However, the sound quality of the album reveals that whatever the Paradiso might offer in a live context, it's possible that a decent setup for recording live music isn't one of them - that, or Fish's mixing desk was on the blink. Either way, this is another "no overdubs" qucik-out-the-door live release from Fish, as he'd been doing since 1993, and this time around audio issues are evident from the beginning, with the sound levels on the opening track noticeably wavering up and down.

By the second half of the album this has alleviated somewhat, but Fish's voice becomes noticeably tired - I winced to hear him struggling at points on The Company, usually a triumphant anthem of his. As a result, despite the band being on good form throughout and Fish soldiering on bravely, this just isn't that essential of a live album.