| The
Review |
The true sign of a great show is when the band can kick
things off with an entire performance of their new album,
which you have not even heard a note from yet, and hold you
captive throughout the whole thing. That is exactly what Marillion
did to me with the performance of their new Marbles album
in its entirety. It is refreshing to see a band like Marillion,
with a 25-plus year history (hard to believe isn't it?), continue
to get better, both in the studio and on the stage. Many Marillion
fans threw in the towel when original front-man, Fish, left
the band in 1988, but the band soldiered on and released arguably
their best album, Season's End, in 1989 with new front-man
Steve Hogarth at the helm.
Hogarth has evolved into one of the best front-men in
the business - with his Peter Gabriel-like song narratives,
charismatic personality, and second-to-none crowd rapport.
Just look at the difference between his first ever tour with
Marillion, on the From Stoke Row To Ipanema DVD, when he was
obviously uncomfortable and intimidated by the legions of
loyal Marillion fans who were still shocked by Fish's departure.
He confidently proves here that Marillion is now undeniably
HIS band. No longer are the Fish-era classics such as "Kayleigh",
and "Lavender" an every concert requirement. Now the crowds
plead for the hits from Season's End and Brave instead.
Marbles On The Road was filmed during the last two nights
of the UK Marbles tour at the Astoria theater in London, England
on July 10 and 11, 2004. It is presented as one cohesive concert,
and basically follows the setlist from the tour. This version
was finally released in the US after the two-disk extended
addition DVD had been available on Marillion's website for
several months already. The only problem was that you had
to be willing to shell out about 35 US dollars to pick that
baby up.
The show opens with the moody, prog epic "The Invisible
Man", with the stage barely lit and bathed in reddish-blue
light, and Hogarth demurely dressed in a suite, tie, and studious
looking glasses. For those of you who, like myself, haven't
seen Marillion for a few years, you will be taken aback by
how much weight Steve Rothery has gained - I'd estimate about
50 pounds. It certainly hasn't hurt his guitar playing though,
because he sounds better than ever. After the short, jazzy,
piano-ballad interlude of "Marbles I" Hogarth looses his jacket,
tie, and glasses and launches into the band's pop single (at
least in the UK) "You're Gone". Next up is "Angelina", whose
smooth-jazz overtones, thanks to some great Hammond organ,
and clean electric guitar, make this song remind me a lot
of late-period Roxy Music. It just continues to get better
from there. The first set ends with the McCartney-esque "The
Damage" followed by the epic "Neverland", which gets about
three minutes trimmed from the 12-minute CD version here.
Hogarth literally pours his heart and soul into these performances
and forces you to hang on to his every word.
The first encore licks off with the first two tracks
"Bridge" and "Living With The Big Lie" from one of my favorite
Hogarth-era Marillion albums, 1994's Brave. This powerful,
emotional performance was one of the show's highlights, as
Hogarth draws you into his head with his repeated chants of
"I GOT USED TO IT!". The second encore begins with Hogarth
carrying out a cricket bat, which has been midi-configured,
and he lets fans in the front row fondle it causing all kinds
of magical sounds to emanate. The Season's End classic "Uninvited
Guest" starts off the set and soon the entire crowd is singing
the entire chorus, while Hogarth can only grin with satisfaction.
Fish who? Half-way into the song Hogarth turns on a bullet-camera
attached to his mic stand, and as he stands in front of the
camera, staring into it, it makes for an incredible close-up
of him with the entire audience cheering wildly behind him.
They ended the concert with their Holidays In Eden single
"Cover My Eyes", a U2-inspired shot at mainstream chart success.
This is not one of their better songs, so the ending was a
little anti-climactic for me.
This is definitely the best produced Marillion DVD to
date, and only misses a top rating thanks to the extremely
inconsistent video quality. Firstly though, the audio was
simply superb. Finally a 5.1 surround mix on a Marillion DVD!
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix utilized the surround speakers as
good as I have heard on a concert DVD. The crowd noise and
various instrument sounds projected from the rear speakers
really made you feel like you were there in the audience.
The video suffered dramatically from a lot of over-exposed
and blurry images, especially when certain red and blue stage
lighting was utilized. This extreme color oversaturization
was especially bad at the beginning of the show during "The
Invisible Man" and "Angelina" and towards the end during "Between
You and Me". It was so bad during "The Invisible Man" that
I thought it had to be some kind of post-production video
affect. The quality was very hit and miss, because about half
the time the picture looked excellent. The camera work was
decent but suffered from the usually hyper-fast angle changes
you expect from The Boom Boom Boys production team, who has
done most of Marillion's videos.
I enjoyed this DVD so much that it actually has me itchin'
to buy the two DVD extended edition, which includes seven
additional songs that were performed at these shows, along
with many other special features. Whatever you do, get at
least one of these versions.
Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - June 2005
http://www.concertdvdreviews.com/
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