Marillion were only a big deal for Brits?

Stay tuned, this will be good.

TBH most people in Britain despised them, back in the day when anyone would actually have heard of them (Fish era). They were certainly the biggest deal amongst British prog-fanciers at the time, but prog was generally ridiculed in the UK during the eighties.

Edited by Mascodagama - June 16 2017 at 14:53

Mascodagama wrote: TBH most people in Britain despised them, back in the day when anyone would actually have heard of them (Fish era). They were certainly the biggest deal amongst British prog-fanciers at the time, but prog was generally ridiculed in the UK during the eighties.

Well, I thought they were a 'household name' in the U.K. but whilst on holiday in Fiji, I came across some folks (early-mid 20s) from England and they gave me the vaguest of looks when I mentioned Marillion. So, I'm not certain they're that famous in their homeland as some of us think. They'd never heard of Hawkwind or Ozrics either. Maybe they just didn't listen to music ??

^ Digressing, but that's like " Oh, Jethro Tull, I have a few of his records " ha ha.

You can replace Marillion with just about any prog/prog related band from our catalogs, and the responses will be similar.

Catcher10 wrote: They toured the US in the 90's I think, with Rush. Marillion started just as classic prog was ending in the US and punk, heavy metal, hair metal, thrash were getting bigger here. There is a decent cult following but nothing gigantic. Marillion are also fairly big in Latin America, as are most newer progressive rock bands. Heck even some older ones, King Crimson is doing 5 nights in Mexico City. They also love Steven Wilson, Anathema, Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Dream Theater and many others travel to Mexico and S. America. Marillion are a big deal for many.......

Yeah I'm going to one of those . Actually, I was afraid I had messed up. I found out about the concerts, but didn't follow the dates closely, so I found out when the tickets came out the very same day because a contact on FB posted the tickets he had bought. I then checked Ticketmaster and indeed it was already available, but I thought I'd check it out in the night... well, by the night both original nights were just about sold out... fortunatley, they opened a 3rd night, and when the tickets came out I was ready to buy them just as soon as they came out. Later on they added the other 2 dates. I was just curious about the size of the venue (I have actually seen some other concerts there, and if you have seen the live DVD of Steven Wilson "Get all you Deserve" it was recorded in that very same venue), andit seems to be about 3000... so King Crimson sold between 12 000 and 15 000 tickets there.

there were some acts that were huge successes in Britain--Marillion and even XTC---but never caught on in the USA----the British always had better taste in music than AMericans---with a much broader sense of good sound

SteveG wrote: Marillion had top 10 UK hits in the 80's Fish era and, as Luka stated above, they very popular in European countries like Italy also. They never were big in the States, but I don't know if they were popular in Canada. But the 80's was not a popular time for prog and was not considered cool. Tbh,  I'm not sure if there was a time when prog was ever considered to be cool.

Only big in the UK, they ooze an Englishness, but I'm sure that all around the world they are enjoyed by fans of motley musical tastes (I first heard about them in a heavy metal magazine).