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What kind of world are we leaving for our children, what madness have we exposed our fragile souls and precariously balanced minds to, for we have become overwhelmed with the unpicking of the detail that we have either, through neglect or apathy, maybe even self-preservation and wilful ignorance, the big picture!
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
A collector never stops finding new ways to add to their bulging corpus, the body of work or the musical exchange of information which sheds lights and offers illumination to how the world turns for them; by fair means, or sometimes foul and once illegal, they find solace in being able to place another version of what they consider beauty on a pedestal and let the spirit of their find fill their soul beyond measure.
Marillion have announced that they will return to the road in the U.K. and Europe in 2019 with an extended line up of musicians joining the band. The tour, which will culminate with two shows at the Royal Albert Hall, will start in Liverpool on November 1st 2019.
The shows will feature the In Praise of Folly String Quartet plus Sam Morris on French Horn and Emma Halnan on Flute, featured on select numbers throughout the show as on previous occasions.
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Steve Hogarth of Marillion, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, April 2018. Photograph used with the kind permission of Gordon Fleming.
It has been a long time since Marillion stepped over the Merseyside border, that near international boundary that separates the city of Liverpool from the U.K., not built in myth but in the very nature of its home grown and adopted sons and daughters strength of purpose and identity. As Steve Hogarth was heard to say during one enjoyable exchange of banter and nicely placed heckle, “We really are in another country now”.
Band To Perform At The Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
Photograph by Ian D. Hall.
Prog rock giants Marillion have announced seven new U.K. dates in April 2018 on the back of their October show at The Royal Albert Hall, which sold out within four minutes of going on sale, and The London Palladium in November, which also sold out in record time.
Marillion’s music is more than prog, it’s musically-experimental and yet-emotional. Within the genre it has a uniquely soul-baring aspect which sets the band apart and has elicited an almost religiously zealous following. After nearly 40 years, the band has evolved into a vibrant and international musical force, flourishing seemingly outside of fashion and mainstream media exposure. Since their formation, they have had 19 Top 30 singles, four of which made the Top 10.
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There are places on the planet in which Time and tradition suggests with a firm but pleasing hand that you should be on any given date. Marillion had already perhaps and with wonderful particular mischief, performed in the United States of America during the run up to the 2016 American Presidential election and their new album F.E.A.R. being an almost perfect backdrop to the constant drip feeding of reports and special analysis of what was happening across the water, across the great divide.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Halloween calls for the imagination to go into overdrive, a night in which revellers can mix with the weird, the wonderful and even Elmer Fudd’s Wassicly Wabbit if the call should be desired hard enough. Halloween is also the night of corporate holiday, the fast buck made, the night where perhaps some live very much in the moment of F.E.A.R.
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Beware the anger of a patient man, don’t let his gentle voice, melodious, gentle and at all times spiritual speech, his wonderment of expression, fool you, don’t be deceived by the nature of the man because when he is angry, when he finally snaps and decides to come out fighting, that is the greatest wrath of them all and you can either batten down the hatches, join him in his fury or Fuck Everybody And Run.
If only I had kept all my tickets
from every train journey I had ever taken,
I have no doubt they would stretch
from here
to there
and back once more
and would only be exceeded
by the amount of music
I have filled my brain
with, track by track, song by song,
over countless miles
to Plymouth and my great grandfather’s
home by the cliffs in Saltash,
to Newcastle to watch a gig or ten
the hour it took to get to Birmingham
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
When all that remains is love, the human heart will feel peace. It is a love that has been kept firmly in the hearts of the tens of thousands of Marillion fans since the first moment they came across the band. When all that remains is love, then the complexity of human emotion can come shining through like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, it is talked of for all time and the beacon searches out both wrecks and salvation alike.