LIVE AT THE BORDERLINE

This album belongs to the "Front Row" serie from Marillion (which is quite an expensive story : almost 50 UK £, or 75 ? or 100 US $ per year to get four releases). The original recording was done during a 1992 fan convention at The Borderline (London). It was printed in limited quantities, and was sold out by 95, re-issued in 97 (again sold out by 99). The CD was re-issued in 2002 as part of the Front Row Club and therefore can only be obtained upon membership.

As far as the sound quality is concerned, the band rates it 5 out of ten (each release for this collection gets a value from the band so that the potential buyer knows what he will get - at least as far as the sound is concerned. Most of the times, you'll get the impression to be amongst the crowd (which is not too bad) but the hand clapping as well as the wonderful singing of the crowd is at times annoying.

By this time, Marillion Mark II, has already recorded two albums, but they will play some older songs (guess why) during this show (five in total). Their own numbers sound harder than on the studio albums, except the great cover "Sympathy". A song full of lightness and emotions.

Now, how will Hogarth cope with the Fish repertoire ? Of course, we won't get their great prog anthems from their debut album. It was not in the mood any longer. Most of them (except "Slainte Mhath" and "Garden Party") will come out of "Misplaced".

When introducing the first of those ones, Hogarth will say : "People ask to me sometimes if I have a problem with signing the old songs. And this is usually what I say, which is what I think : You have to feel songs, and they are either brilliant and they do move you or they are crap and they don't. There is also a grey area for the don't move no crap. Anyway this is a completely brilliant song : this is "Kaleigh".

All this intro has been said on a very, very low tone. You'll almost have to put on your volume to the max to be able to hear it as if Hogarth was too shy to talk about this frankly.

My opinion is that if you have never heard the other Marillion's frontman singing it, you could say : hey, that's a pleasant song. Good guitar, nice melody. Average singer. Because even when he flirts with the poppish Marillion songs, he has a tough work. Fortunately, the crowd will help Steve (throughout all these older songs actually).

"Heart Of Lothian" even if it is shortened here and leaves very little place for Hogarth to show his vocal skills (?), is rather pityful. Again, the crowd will half sing it. At this time, I can think of nothing better to start "The Crying" from Arena and get the crowd "helping" the band (which they do here). Very poor (not the crowd).

Unfortunately, "Slainte Mhath" (awful) and "Garden Party" won't change my feelings about Hogarth's capabilities of interpreting genuine Marillion songs. He is not trying to sound as Fish of course (which is impossible for him) but his interpretations just doesn't work.

There will be apparently a rare live version of "The Release", a B-side single song featured on the "Season's End" bonus CD. Nothing to be remembered, really.

So, the proof is not really positive, I'm afraid. This attempt to please the fans is rather a karaokee exercise than anything else ("Uninvited Guest" is another example). This album is of course for completionists only. One star.

This release has a bit of historical significance for Marillion, because it's the first thing they ever put out on their own label, Racket Records. Racket would end up being a central plank of Marillion's history going forwards, providing an outlet for them to exercise the same DIY spirit which won them their original EMI contract back in the 1980s to begin with - and, for that matter, which former frontman Fish was exercising in his own way at around this time with his string of "official bootleg" releases.

The latter comparison is an apt one, because this is very much a by-popular-demand release of a show recording which, frankly, isn't that much up to snuff. Indeed, it would later be reissued as part of the Front Row Club series, which by and large provides soundboard tapes of shows which the band hadn't seen fit to use as the basis for a more polished live release, and Hogarth and the gang outright admit that the recording quality is at best a 5 out of 10 - and when the band themselves are saying "buyer beware", you know you've got some ropey stuff here. (At several points the crowd noise is appreciably louder than the band on the tape.)

It doesn't help that this particular live show comes from a fairly well-documented period in Marillion's history - specifically, the Holidays in Eden tour. If you're a keen enough fan of H-era Marillion to even contemplate scraping through the masses of Front Row Club releases, you almost certainly have already picked up The Official Bootleg Box Set Vol. 2, and that has two Holidays In Eden-era shows in it already. If you're a completist, well, you're a completist - but if like me you dig live Marillion but are a bit more selective, the two shows in that box will cover your needs just fine and there's little need to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get this one.