RECITAL OF THE SCRIPT

Time passes. And this is very clear with this concert video which shows MARILLION playing a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in April 1983, with the members of the band being in their early or mid twenties, playing to a mostly very young audience (to teenagers and to twenty- somethings). Their first album "Script for a Jester`s Tear" was just released in March 1983. Fish announces in the video that it was the last concert of their tour (a brief one, I think; maybe it was just the U.K. part of the tour, because they later carried on with an U.S tour and an European tour in 1983, before recording their second album in late 1983). This concert in London was also Mick Pointer`s last concert with the band, as it says in the final credits of this video. And while I did not like very much his drums playing and sound in their first album, in this concert video I could see that it was a bit unfair that he was fired at that time, because in this concert he played better and that his drums sounded better than in the album, and maybe with the passing of time he could have improved a lot, as his work with ARENA years later has proved. Anyway, that kind politics exist in every band, unfortunately. But fortunately, Pointer has found his right place in ARENA recording a lot of albums since 1995.

The influences from GENESIS with Peter Gabriel are very clear in this early concert video from MARILLION. Dramatic vocals, the use of costumes, make-ups and theatrical gestures by Fish are the main ingredients of these influences from GENESIS with Peter Gabriel. (This is more clear in the song "Grendel" which has some influences from GENESIS`s "Supper`s Ready" long song, as some of the members of MARILLION have recognized since then). Anyway, Fish had his own approach, and MARILLION musically also had their own style since the beginning. I think that MARILLION was a very good band since then even if in this concert video they still look and sound a bit nervous. But with the passing of time they obviously became a better band. And maybe this concert video was a bit premature to be released with only one album recorded then. But it is a very good document of their early years.