PJA - Storytellers Night: Marillion Convention

My first ever Marillion Convention! Well, at least the Saturday night part of one anyway. A friend of mine had kindly given me his wife's ticket as she decided three nights in a row might be a touch too much. I was only too happy of course to step in and take over the 'wristband'.

Even better this years venue was only just up the road at The De-Montfort Hall in Leicester. Avenue I'm familiar with, having seen the likes of Def Leppard , Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy all perform there.

Each night featured a different show, with the Sunday night being 'album night'. 'Happiness is the Road' this time round.
This is actually the 7th time the Convention has been held. Two have already taken place earlier this year in The Netherlands and Poland. There are still two more to come in Canada and Poland.

We had the choice of standing or seating , allocated on a first come first served basis . We opted for the balcony, in the very back row.

Before Marillion we had the support band ' Watercolours' A bit of nepetism going on here as the lead singer announced that Mark Kelly was his Uncle!

They were decent enough without being spectacular. But they did the job support acts are there for so no complaints.

My companion 'Gordon' had been the previous night and described the atmosphere as almost spiritual at times.

They played almost entirely tracks from the first four albums of the 'Hogarth era'. 'Seasons End', 'Holidays in Eden', 'Brave' and ' Afraid of Sunlight'. Two my favourite songs were included, 'Splintering Heart' and the encore of ' King'.

Tonight's set started off with three tracks that I didn't know that well .Probably tracks that have rarely been done live in truth. We had 'Interior Lulu' followed by ' built-in Bastard Radar' and 'Enlightenment'. All three songs from from the 'Marillion.com' album.Not an album that I'm very familiar with in truth.

Ocean Cloud

The next song was the lovely 'One Fine Day' from the very underrated 'This Strange Engine' album from 1997.

It was apparent that we were continuing the sequence from the night before as 'Ocean Cloud' from possibly my favourite album Marbles came next.

'H' introduced the 18 minute epic song as being dedicated to 'Don Allum' the solo Atlantic rower. The first person to row across the Atlantic in both directions single handed .'There would be 'Blue Plaques' everywhere if this man had gone to Eton' says 'H' .It's an extremely moving piece. complemented beautifully by the light and film show that accompanied it. A fitting tribute to a great British adventurer who never got the recognition his achievements deserved.

In fact the lights and big screen show were absolutely brilliant throughout.

Next song was again from 'Marbles' and to me is a real chill out kind of song 'Fantastic Place'. Maybe something about escapism , from one life into another even for the briefest moment.

The next two songs 'When I meet God' and 'The Fruit of the Wild Rose' both come from the album 'Anoraknophobia'. From 2001 it is recognised as the first ever to be 'crowd funded'. The title referring to the long-running in-joke that Marillion fans are also sometimes called anoraks.........

As expected we were getting the next four albums in the release sequence.

Back to 'Marbles' (or at least the double CD version) we had 'Genie' . Having only the single CD I wasn't overly familiar with this one. A song about recurring dreams, previous lives and of course letting the Genie out of the box.

'An Accidental Man' sees 'H'' take to the stake in a black leather jacket with 'An Accidental Man' emblazoned on the back. He's in full strutting mode and the audience are lapping it up.

The set concludes with 'Seperated Out' again from 'Anoraknophobia'. It's been a very different set from what I had expected. Not some of the 'big hitters ' but great to hear more obscure stuff.

Steve Rothery and 'H'

The band return for the encore,and 'H' explains that the next song was written after he met Paul Barney, who was the only British survivor of the disaster when the cruise ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea on 28 September 1994, killing 852 people.

We have a fantastic rendition of 'Estonia'.

The second encore song is 'This is the 21st Century'.

'H'

I honestly thought that we be it and was waiting for the house lights to come on !

However we had one more treat in store a full seventeen minutes in the form of 'This Strange Engine'. A very fitting end to what has been some night .

A night when I'm reminded what an underrated album 'This Strange Engine' really is. It has been lovely to catch up with 'Gordon' at last and a real pleasure as always to be in the company of such a brilliant band .