CURTAIN CALL - A LIVE ARCHIVE 1983 - 1988

This rare box set was originally issued via Marillion's Front Row Club, and simultaneously via Fish's site - in fact, it almost didn't come out until Marillion agreed to such a parallel release, since Fish didn't want his fans to be obliged to pay the (rather steep) subscription fees for the Front Row Club if they weren't interested in H-era live recordings and just wanted to buy this box. Like the later Early Stages boxed set, it's a collection of complete concerts from different points within the Fish era of the band's career, from the Script for a Jester's Tear tour to the Clutching at Straws tour.

First off is a 1983 show in Germany, notable for featuring Jonathan Mover on drums. Mick Pointer had left the band a few months back, and after being blessed with the presence of Camel's Andy Ward on drums for their appearance at the Reading festival in 1983 the band briefly took on Mover before personality incompatibilities led to him leaving the band taking on Ian Mosley. Mover's drumming is clearly more technically flashy than Pointer's was, though this is sometimes a hindrance as well as a help. The old Script for a Jester's Tear-era material tended towards a rather sparse drum sound, which gave it a rather special atmosphere - an atmosphere which in this performance is punctured from time to time by Mover's rather busy drumming style, his playing occasionally even intruding into points where usually Steve Rothery or Mark Kelly would be playing solo. The recording is also hampered by a sound quality which is average but not exceptional, and occasionally reveals a glitch or two. It's an alright listen, but the Early Stages boxed set or Recital of the Script provide much better shows from the Script tour with far better recording quality. (In particular, the guitar solo at the climax of Forgotten Sons here is utterly ruined - either by a technical failure onstage or with the recording, it's hard to say - to an extent which is frankly unforgivable.)

Next up we have a show from early 1986, part of the extensive touring which followed the smash success of Misplaced Childhood, and includes a decent rendition of the entire album plus a few nicely chosen encores afterwards. The variable sound quality in evidence, as well as the band (Fish in particular) sounding rather tired and irritable combine to make this live disc somewhat less compelling than the earlier show - in particular, the band sound exhausted, as though the Misplaced Childhood tour were beginning to wear on them.

This definitely isn't the case for the third show, which is truly the highlight of the collection. This Milan concert from late in the Clutching at Straws tour finds the band in an incredibly energetic mood - and the audience is just as happy to be there. Treating the crowd to a pumped-up rendition of songs from all four albums of the Fish era, the concert - much like the Live at Loreley set, which it closely resembles - is a great summation of that period in the band's history. The concert is set apart from Live at Loreley and the Wembley Arena concert from the Early Stages set by the fact that the backing singers who had been a presence earlier on in the tour are absent this time around - which is a shame, though the Clutching material stands up well without them.

On the whole, this set isn't quite as essential as the Early Stages box - restricted as they were to material that they alone held the rights to and not having access to the EMI archives, the band and Fish were presumably rather constrained in what shows they could pick out for this - but well worth picking up if you are a major fan of this phase of the band's career if only for that last Milan show. Then again, I think Early Stages has the edge on this one - as well as just plain including more shows, it features a performance or two with Mick Pointer on drums, whereas Mick is conspicuous by his absence this time around, and more importantly it includes some cracking performances of Grendel, the early Marillion classic which was such a lynchpin of their early live shows but which is conspicuous by its absence here.