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 In an iTunes age of schizophrenic track hopping, a 40-minute
concept rock album seems an outdated curiosity. But the loyal
sell-out London crowd on Saturday night lapped up every minute,
as the songs blended seamlessly one into another.
"It was an album that touched a lot of people back in 1985. The
concept of rediscovery, someone rebuilding and finding
themselves is an eternal story," lyricist Fish, who fronted
Marillion between 1981 and 1988, told Reuters in an interview.
"It has such strong songs, such a lot of drama. When I'm
performing it on stage, there's been a couple of moments when
I've choked (up)," Fish, less well known as Derek William Dick,
said. "It was a very personal album for me, very
autobiographical."
Back in London, haunting keyboards signaled the beginning of the
performance of "Misplaced Childhood", segueing into "Kayleigh",
the band's biggest hit and credited with boosting the popularity
of the girls name for a generation. It then gave way to
"Lavender", a resplendent take on the traditional children's
lullaby.
Over complex musical arrangements, Fish, whose voice has been
described as a "conflation of Roger Daltrey and Peter Gabriel",
gave an impassioned performance, at times making you think that
some of the demons which haunted the tracks of "Misplaced
Childhood" at its inception, were not really that far away.
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In the audience, tt was the third time Steve Lynch had seen Fish
this year. "Bearing in mind this is (Fish's) last rendition of
'Misplaced Childhood' and the fact that he's giving up touring, we
felt we had to come up all the way to London to see him," said the
63-year-old from Worthing, on England's south coast.
The audience, word perfect from first to last, at times threatened
to drown out the band as familiar lyrics were retrieved from deep in
the memory.
For husband and wife John and Babs Weston, from Sittingbourne in
Kent, the album was the soundtrack for their teenage years.
"We've listened to it for years and years and years ... We named one
of our daughters, the youngest one, after Kayleigh," said John, 48.
The rest of the set was filled with material from Fish's solo career
- both he and Marillion have released an imposing number of albums
since going their separate ways, albeit without the commercial
success they enjoyed together.
(Editing by Michael Roddy/Jeremy Gaunt)
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