Articles → Marillion Weekend 2007 (Day Three)

February 4th, 2007

We had no illusions of doing anything useful on the Sunday morning, after such a late night, so got up just in time to slowly come to, have lunch and make our way to the first event of the day, held in the main venue.

When we first got there and went to the bar, we randomly bumped into silver52 who we'd not met in person before. It was good to meet him and his wife, and have a brief chat about the weekend so far. Of all the Marillion Weekends I've been to, this was the one with the least people I actually knew, so that was pretty cool. (And to the rest of you ... how about being there next time?)

While we'd been buying merch and visiting the museum the previous afternoon, there'd been a Marillion-based quiz going on in the Adventure Factory. The prize for the winning team was to take part in a final against the band themselves! There were rounds about the band's history, about the lyrics, and a really tough round of identifying songs from some evilly warped audio. Add some biased audience participation, and perhaps a little bit of dodgy scorekeeping, and it was all very entertaining :)

That was followed by a band Q&A - there had been a box near the merch desk for people to put questions in, and the band answered a selection of those. There were quite a range, from "Where would you hold these Weekends if there were no other constraints?" (on a cruise ship in the Bahamas seemed a popular answer) to "What do your kids think of your music?" to "Will Ian do a drum clinic next time?". It was fun, mainly because the guys from the band are genuinely funny when answering questions like these, and getting a glimpse of this other, less formal (for want of a better phrase) side of the band is one of the nice things about these conventions.

Because of the quiz / Q&A, there was only one support band playing in the Adventure Factory, called The Sad Song Co.. We managed to get a table again, but it was right in front of one the speaker stacks - plingthepenguin had her back to it, and when the music loudly kicked in, I think her eyebrows nearly fell off ;) I enjoyed this, though I'm not sure what to say about it now - pretty rocky, mostly focussed on the main singer/writer/keyboard player (though he played some guitar at times too). They ended their set with what I assume was a chunk of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, but I don't actually know it ;)

We quickly grabbed some dinner then headed over to the main venue for the evening show. We got a spot left of centre and quite a bit closer to the stage than the night before, but the crowd felt much more packed in than on the other two nights. I guess it was the big "last night" and no-one wanted to miss anything!

The support band was Gazpacho, who I'd seen play before, at the 2003 Weekend. Like then, they played a kind of moody, polished progressive rock that I can admire, but never feel excited about. They're certainly all very talented, but perhaps it's just too polished and moody for me. I did enjoy the 'abbreviated' version they played of their new album, though, and it was cool when Steve Rothery came out and played a guest solo spot with them, too.

Marillion's show on this last night was billed as "the ultimate Marillion set", with the band members each choosing their favourite Marillion songs to play. So we had a night full of classics and favourites, from the fantastic opener of "Splintering Heart" to the incredible audience response to the "Warm Wet Circles" trilogy to recent top 10 single "You're Gone" to emotional epics like "Afraid of Sunlight" and "Neverland". There were fewer surprises than the Saturday night, of course, but they did play the "Lords Of The Backstage / Blind Curve" section of Misplaced Childhood for the first time since 1991 (I'm told!). "The Invisible Man" was a highlight too, just watching Steve H, who was completely inside the song - the sort of performance which makes the song mean more to you.

They started the last of several sets of encores with "The Space". H had had a few tired sounding vocal moments earlier, so when they got to the high vocal section at the end, he sensibly lowered it - for the first half of it. But then he astonished by just belting out the last section, nailing the notes, and it just ripped straight through me. Another weekend highlight, one of many. And then they finished with a repeat of their Hocus Pocus cover of the night before, which seemed fairly fitting. It's by a Dutch band after all, and it ended the weekend on a fun note :)

Setlist:

Splintering Heart
Hotel Hobbies
Warm Wet Circles
That Time of the Night
You're Gone
Fantastic Place
Afraid Of Sunlight
Lords of the Backstage
Blind Curve
Between You And Me
Neverland
The Great Escape
King
The Invisible Man

The Space
Hocus Pocus

It was a fantastic show, made even better by being the last of three very different shows that we were treated to over the Weekend. We went for a drink to wind down afterwards, and I think for at least about the first ten minutes or more we just stared at each other, not knowing what to say (other than the occasional "wow, that was good"!).

And that was it for the Marillion Weekend 2007, bar a bit of sleeping and a lot of uneventful travelling home. It left us all feeling pretty exhausted by the time we got home, but the music and the atmosphere and the friendly vibe were all so incredibly good that not even getting home to find our front garden gate had been nicked while we were away could dent my mood! But that's another story.

Can't wait for the next one ...