At a Marillion weekend it's traditional to begin with 'album night' on a Friday and that held true for 2013, though unlike previous weekends, which
have featured quite a diverse range of themes, this time around every night was
album night. Friday belonged to Radiation (or Radiat10n as it’s spelt
on the album cover - and on *somebody’s* user name on most internet forums – on
account of it being the band’s 10th studio effort), widely regarded
as one of the band’s weaker releases. Whether this is fair is subject to
debate - personally I feel it does rank towards the bottom of the
Marillion catalogue, but is by no means a poor album (they only have one of
those, if you ask me – what do you mean you didn’t?! - and even that’s only
true if you consider Less is More to be a ‘proper’ album in the first place).
One thing Radiation certainly has in
its favour is its unusally high quotient (by Marillion standards, at
least!) of rockier numbers, so Under the
Sun (see below) and the unfairly-maligned Answering Machine certainly kicked things off with a bang. Fan
favourite (even amongst those who don’t care for the album as a whole) Three Minute Boy was up next, and by now
the party was in full flow. The fans ambushed the band with a mid-song ‘3
minute scream’ when it was played in 2011, so this time they were expecting it
and didn’t let it go on toooooo long, but it was still a fun moment.
Before the convention I’d
worried that the three consecutive slow numbers that follow (Now She’ll Never Know, These Chains and Born to Run) would prove to be both
atmosphere and momentum-killers, but this wasn’t the case. Now She’ll Never Know became the first number of the evening to get
the eyes turning all watery on me (and h's seemingly effortless switches in and out of falsetto were simply breathtaking), These
Chains is one of those songs that turns out to be far more powerful live,
and after being trotted out at two consecutive convention seasons, I have to
say that Born to Run has really grown
on me, though it will never be a contender for a spot in my 'favourite 100 Marillion songs' list.
Nonetheless the killer intro of Cathedral
Wall came at just the right time to pick the energy up again, although in
truth it’s not exactly a fast song either, though it is ‘heavy’. Both it and album closer A Few Words for the Dead are certainly amongst the
album’s highlights and the ‘or you could love’ section of the latter provided
one of the surprises of the night, as, seemingly from nowhere, large-stemmed
flowers appeared in the hands of fans throughout the hall. Knowing the event
was being filmed (more on the DVD release a bit later) some brightly-coloured
attire, sunglasses and suchlike had been suggested as the dress code (you know, to
‘sort of’ reflect the radiation theme). Sensible folk like myself ignored this
(and maybe even suspected a certain group of fans of trying to impose
their own unique fashion sense onto the rest of us for the evening!),
but the flowers were a genuinely nice touch, of the sort that Marilloin fans do specialise in, it has to be said – and the band later confirmed they
had no idea that it was coming. Nor did I - I'd missed that particular fan memo!
Radiation has recently
been re-mixed and re-released, and the new mix from Michael Hunter has
converted a number of fans who particularly disliked the original ‘rough’ feel the album was
given. Personally I’m not wildly keen about revisions after the fact, and I
figure the live recording of this show is the only alternative version I need. And
you thought I was a total obsessive/completist, you don’t know me at all
really, do you? :P
Friday nights have traditionally
been seen as something of a warm-up night in the past, with only a handful of extra tracks played in addition
to the main attraction of the full album concept. This time around, though, after
a brief intermission the band returned for a set that threatened to overshadow Radiation
as they performed a scattershot selection of tracks from all over the
decades, ranging from recentish classics such as Genie and Somewhere Else, to early h-era singles Hooks in You and Cover My Eyes (both of which should have been smashes, rather than
the moderate hits they actually were). The latter segued neatly into Slainte Mhath, the first Fish-era song
of the night. In Port Zelande this year h had surprised everybody by toasting Fish at
the song’s conclusion – this time the toast was perhaps less spontaneous (but surely
no less heartfelt) and came mid-song, fittingly before the line about ‘raising
the standard Drambuie’, which I’m sure the big man would appreciate! Not many
years ago, that would have been precisely that as far as Fishy material went,
but of late the band as a whole have seemed a bit more relaxed about playing
the early stuff (though still never very much of it at once, possibly as it seems to make h suicidal, or something...) and so Slainte was followed by Lavender and Heart of Lothian. Capping even that was the appearance of Script for a Jester’s Tear as the first
encore. I’d describe how brilliant a performance they gave of this, but why
bother when you can just watch it...
As I mentioned earlier the gig
was filmed and a mere ten and a half hours later (note this time is from the start, not the end, of the show!) it was available to buy as a
2DVD/3CD package (from which Under the
Sun and Script have been released
to YouTube for promotional purposes, hence the handy links to them above!), regaining the band their world record for
fastest turnaround between the recording and release of a live DVD. Obviously it's warts 'n' all, but the band prove, beyond any measure of doubt, that where they're concerned there simply aren't that many warts in the first place.
With the
first 50 for sale signed by the band some of the band’s craziest fans (we’re
all crazy, but to varying degrees, you understand) queued from 5.30am to secure
their copies. I've no idea how long fan number 51 queued for, but I hope they weren’t
too disappointed to miss out! Personally I was happy enough to wait and buy a
(guaranteed unsigned) copy after that evening’s gig.
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