FROM STOKE ROW TO IPANEMA - A YEAR IN THE LIFE (DVD)

If you have read my reviews for the Mark II studio albums released before this DVD, you know already that I liked very much the genuine band, while Mark II does not have really my favours.

And I was even more angry when looking at the few lines of text of the first DVD. According this message, Fish left unexpectidely. They could have, at least, mentioned that he was purely sacked from the band.

The whole of this DVD will relate the genesis (sorry about that one) of the new band. Hogarth recruitment was rather strange. Through a small ad in the Melody Maker (or NME) : Marillion needs vocalist ! After having heard the tape from Hogarth, the whole band knows that he will be the man !

I still wonder what could have made them so sure about that. Anyway, IMO the choice for a complete different character than Fish is still today completely out of my understanding but since Marillion still produces albums and tours I guess that my opinion does not count very much and will join the hundred of thousands of the ones who prefered the other Marillion. The first and genuine one.

Since I moderately appreciated their first post-Fish studio-album (while the man reached Nr. 5 in the UK chart with his first solo album) which won't be a huge commercial success, I find DVD one more interesting. We learn Hogarth's integration process in the band, his fear for the live performances etc.

They will play their first gig in a pub with around 100 people ! Hogarth telling that the crowd was really close to him and that he could get beaten pretty easily. But, fortunately, nothing as such happened. On the contrary, the crowd (and this will be verified throughout their first tour) will be rather fair to him. The peak being their gig in Paris in front of 5 to 6 thousand people during which (half in the concert) the crowd brought a fantastic support and were clapping and yelling their faith to the band that they had to stop playing for bout three minutes. This must be quite impressive.

So, what the band had feared will never happen. The fans (at least the ones still going to the concerts) won't be harsh. But of course audience and album sales won't reach the glory of the past years. In a period of a few months, Hogarth will go from anonimity to stardom (in Brazil) ! They will play at a festival in front of seventy thousand people. Steve (Hogarth), will also explain the history of the clip for "Easter" which is quite an emotional moment for him.

This is a good documentary. As the sub-title of this DVD says : A Year In The Life - June 89 / July 90.

The second DVD is a recording of a live set in the UK. We'll get the full "Season's End" album which could absolutely not interest me for a ?cent (or a penny or whatever). These live versions, as I have said in my review for their "Live In Caracas" are superior to the studio ones. The passion of the stage can be felt while it was almost pure melancholy in studio. But the original being rather average, it is hard to transform it into a great piece of work.

So, to fill up a full list of a set, Mark II has integrated some old songs like the "Misplaced" trilogy which might not be evident for "Kayleigh" (I already have explained why in previous reviews), "Heart Of Lothian" being out of reach vocally for Steve. And his performances during "Incommunicado" and "Market Square Heroes" (almost twice as speedy as the original) won't be convincing at all.

There are even some "Director's Cut" bonuses which are actually six songs already presented in the normal presentation and therefore redundant and useless.

I can hardly recommend this to anyone outside the Mark II circle of fans. Two stars.

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