LIVE AT THE BORDERLINE

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.