FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL

The December 1991 portion of Fish's Internal Exile tour is actually rather well-represented in live releases - some might say over-represented. You see, come 1993, Fish was setting up his own independent label, and he needed to get some product out there. He was also very aware that bootlegs of his performances had been selling well - so he decided to release a clutch of "official bootleg"-type recordings off his own bat. Packaged in the sort of cheap and cheerful format which bootlegs at the time used, but sourced from soundboard tapes and given some mild polishing, the idea was that by providing a better-sounding product at a comparable price he could beat the bootleggers at their own game.

By itself, it wasn't a bad plan - Fish wasn't the first artist to do something like this (remember Zappa's Beat the Boots series?), and he wouldn't be the last. His old bandmates in Marillion would try a similar idea with the Front Row Club of soundboard recordings aimed at hardcore fans, after all - which is unsurprising given that Fish and Marillion made their mark in the first place off the back of a strong DIY attitude and a close connection to their fans.

The problem here was that Fish's solo career was still fairly young. so he didn't exactly have a deep bench of tapes to choose from. This led to the somewhat muddled spectacle of him releasing three live albums in 1993 which were all recorded in the same month (December 1991), and with extremely similar setlists. Those would be For Whom the Bells Toll, Derek Dick and His Amazing Electric Bear, and Uncle Fish and the Crypt Creepers.

For superfans who absolutely cannot get enough Fish, this might be a real boon, but for someone who's less of a completist - interested enough in Fish's live shows to want a nice show from the Internal Exile Tour but not interested enough to want multiple very similar shows from the same general leg of it - which one to pick? For Whom The Bells Toll is the first one of these I've encountered, and I wouldn't say it's so essential that I desperately want to hear the others - but it's a great little show and I'm pretty satisfied with this one.

The reason this is the odd one out is that is the New Year's Eve show in Edinburgh (with the exception of the concluding medley, which was taken from a slightly early show in Paris since the set-closer of Internal Exile and Market Square Heroes was missing from these tapes). This means that Fish and the crowd are in a merry mood, seeing in 1992 partway through the set and generally in a boisterous mood.

This adds a welcome dose of additional levity to proceedings and provides a somewhat more positive energy to proceedings, which is helpful because (as Fish himself notes in his patter with the audience) 1991 was a rough old year for him. You wouldn't know it to hear the album though, which runs through the best of the Internal Exile and Vigil In a Wilderness of Mirrors albums with a few select dips into the Marillion repertoire. Musically, Fish was really stepping out of the shadow of his Marillion career at this point, even though in terms of critical and commercial reception he was still having difficulties, but the business troubles evaporate here to leave behind a great art-rock set.

Not a five star live show because the tapes aren't without their flaws and there's only so much that can be done to tidy them up - but it's a very solid offering, and short of doing a "best of" version of the setlist taking the best performance from this and its two companion live releases the presentation on For Whom the Bell Tolls is about as good as live Fish from this era gets.