Day 3
Sunday 4th February

During the afternoon of the previous day there had been a Marillion quiz in the pub for teams of fans to pit their knowledge of the band against each other. The winning team then had the chance to go head-to-head with the band themselves on the main stage on the Sunday afternoon in the ‘final’. This was great fun and down to some dubious score keeping the band managed to win by one point. There was also a question and answer section, where fans could ask the band any burning questions they had; some more relevant than others. “Does any of the band have an iPod charger I could borrow?”; “Would Ian consider doing a drum clinic at the next convention?”; “Where would they like the next convention to be if getting there and money was no object?”. There were quite a few more which seem to have slipped my mind at the moment, but again it was fun and relaxed with the band entering into a lot of friendly banter with the crowd.

Sunday Night Show

The wonderful Gazpacho was the support act on Sunday. With a new album out called ‘Night’ they played a sizeable chunk of it plus a few choice cuts from previous albums. ‘Do You Know What You Are Saying?’ from their previous album ‘Firebird’ featured a wonderful solo from Steve Rothery.

The Marillion show for the final night of the weekend was made up of the bands own favourite Marillion  songs and it was pretty damn close to being the best set list ever. Starting off with one of my personal favourites, ‘Splintering Heart’. I am afraid the emotion of the occasion got to me during this song and a few tears were shed. The whole band was on top form with only h’s voice showing a few signs of wear from the previous nights. Not only did we get the ‘Warm Wet Circles’ trilogy, it was great to hear ‘Lords of the Backstage’ and ‘Blind Curve’ again from the ‘Misplaced Childhood’ album. See, they do still play some of the old stuff! What we got on this Sunday night was a set full of the classics; ‘Afraid of Sunlight’ was anthemic, and ‘Neverland’ from the most recent album ‘Marbles’, already a classic Marillion song, was spellbinding with Rothers guitar soaring.

The band returned to the stage to play ‘The Great Escape’. Everyone singing along in unison “Heading for the great escape, Heading for the rave, Heading for the permanent holiday…”. It was almost a hymn. Next, ‘King” gave Ian Mosely the chance to really get stuck into his drum kit and give it some serious battering.

I think my only moan was that they played ‘Hocus Pocus’ again at the end (possibly trying to recreate the party atmosphere of the previous night) where I would have preferred something like ‘Garden Party’, or ‘Script’ to round things off on a high. And I was surprised at no point during the weekend did we get to hear ‘Freaks’ a song which the Dutch fans have taken as their own. But hey, these are minor quibbles of what was a fantastic weekend in the company of the best band and the best fans around.

I love the fact that the band seem not to take any of this for granted. They appear genuinely moved by the reaction their music and performances have on people. There is a genre of music known as emo; well for me, Marillion create the most Emotional music bar none.

Roll on the ‘Somewhere Else’ tour later in the year
http://www.marillion.com/tour/index.htm

Sunday Set List

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
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The Great Escape
King
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The Invisible Man
-----------------------------
The Space
Hocus Pocus


Well I hope you have all enjoyed my reviews of the Marillion Convention 2007. Make sure you all go out and buy the new album on April 9th.
http://www.marillion.com/

Cheers
David 8-)

Thank you for this information DJ Silver.I am waiting for their new CD.




8-)

Sweet writeup Silver.

Whens ur session then????? ::) ::)

GFTO77 wrote on 16^th Feb, 2007 at 6:04pm:

Sweet writeup Silver. Whens ur session then????? ::) ::)

Thanks a lot

Next session? It's on my To-Do-List!

Many thanks for this series of reports from what sounds like a fantastic weekend. 8-)

D