Location: Trieste / Castello di San Gusto / Italy
Date: Sunday, August 4, 2019
Steve Rothery, the English guitar virtuoso who came “to the fore” in the mid-eighties as a founding member of the cult progressive rock band Marillion, played amid the wonderful atmosphere of Trieste’s San Gusto castle. With him were his daughter Jennifer, who has grown into a talented singer in recent years, and an Italian backing band led by keyboardist/singer Riccardo Romano (RanestRane, Steve Rothery Band, Riccardo Romano Land). Rothery’s show with his Italian buddies was free, so local and foreign prog rock fans, above all fans of Steve’s Marillion legacy, filled almost every seat in front of the stage. After a long drought for prog rock in Trieste, we finally got a seriously tempting concert event, and it grabbed our interest right away. We’d seen Rothery’s guitar artistry plenty of times with Marillion, but never as a solo musician or as a collaborator with other, mostly Italian, musicians.
This special concert was split into three parts. For the “warm-up”, Steve, with Riccardo Romano on keys and his backing band, played the instrumental “Morpheus” from his solo debut “The Ghosts of Pripyat” (2015), dedicated to the Ukrainian city of Pripyat, which was hit hard by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster more than three decades ago. The years have clearly taken their toll on Rothery, and since around 1995 he’s only been “growing” sideways, but the guitar virtuoso is still in great form, and he proved it with every single performance, except for the few times he wasn’t on stage. His trademark guitar solos with their distinctly melancholic stamp are always a feast for the ears, even when he’s not playing Marillion classics.
His guitar subtlety and finesse reached an exceptional peak when his daughter Jennifer came on stage and sang three songs from her debut EP “Opia” (2019), plus one cover. She released that EP as the project Sylf. Among the songs was “Fade Into You”, a cover of the American alternative act Mazzy Star, which replaced “Night After Night” from the EP. For now at least, Jennifer clearly doesn’t want to release music under her own first and last name. She probably doesn’t want anyone accusing her of cashing in on her father’s fame and recognizable surname, as tends to happen in cases like this, even though she’s already an excellent singer. We quite liked what we heard, especially “Opia” and “Northern Star”, though at times it reminded us of Rothery’s former project The Wishing Tree, which also featured female vocals.
Then Romano, who had “moved” from the keyboards to the mic, announced the performance of his ambitious concept project, the rock opera “B612”, inspired by the literary classic “The Little Prince” by the French writer Antoine De Saint-Exupery. Both Rothery and his daughter appear on that album, as does current Marillion singer Steve Hogarth. B612 is the name of the little asteroid where the Little Prince lived. For the occasion, Romano used a scarf to dress up as the Little Prince several times, and once as the aforementioned writer/pilot, but in that second “transformation” he reminded us more of Grunf from the comic Alan Ford, so amid the mostly serious and melancholic atmosphere there were a few moments for a laugh too.
As for this part of the show, the songs that stuck with us most were “Invisible to the Eyes”, Romano’s vocal duet with Jennifer in which they “played” the Little Prince and his Rose, and “The King”, where the outstanding Martin Jakubski stepped up as lead vocalist for the first time that evening, dressed up as the stiff, lonely king from that same literary classic. The good vibe was lifted even more by quality animated projections in the background, illustrating some key moments from “The Little Prince”. As expected, Rothery played guitar only on the “B612” songs he had worked on in the studio.
After the successful presentation of Romano’s musically rather interesting art rock concept project, which draws some parallels with the Marillion masterpiece “Brave” (1994) and Peter Gabriel’s “OVO” (2000) project, it was time for the long-awaited “get-together” with the Marillion legacy. Let’s be honest: most of the crowd came to this gig mainly to hear Rothery’s takes on some Marillion standards that the cult band rarely plays, especially the ones from the era when lead vocals belonged to Derek Dick, better known as Fish. Jakubski is a phenomenal singer with a voice similar in color to Fish’s and a very wide vocal range, so from the first song on he convinced us he was an ideal pick for an undertaking like this.
Before that, Romano briefly stepped into Steve Hogarth’s singing “shoes” and, thanks to a certain vocal similarity, fairly convincingly sang “King” from “Afraid of Sunlight” (1995), which was played flawlessly on the instrumental side. Then the classics from the Fish era followed one after another. First the hits everyone expected, “Kayleigh” and “Lavender” from the concept masterpiece “Misplaced Childhood” (1985), then surprises like the socially critical “Cinderella Search”, the vengeful-erotic “Incubus” and the awakening “Slainte Mhath”. Jakupski sang the latter with such confidence that he earned the longest and loudest applause of any musician that night. It was also great to hear and see Rothery play two classics from the often overlooked album “Fugazi” (1984). After all these decades, he has probably started to miss them a little himself in the live repertoire.
In the first encore, Steve and his Italian comrades, with great vocal support from Jakupski, played two more evergreens from “Clutching at Straws” (1987), “Sugar Mice” and “The Last Straw”. In the second encore Jennifer joined them on stage too, so the complete “crew” was up there, and once again there was a very interesting and fitting vocal “exchange”. For the farewell, Steve and the gang played “Afraid of Sunlight” from the album of the same name, and left the stage to thunderous applause.
Rothery’s show with his “Italian crew”, split into four parts, made the Marillion faithful happiest, as expected, mostly in its closing stretch, but the first three parts, with the opening solo instrumental, the Sylf EP set and the musical revival of “The Little Prince”, also turned out really well. Despite relatively modest expectations, this was a concert well worth seeing in every respect. The sound was very solid, and there was only one more noticeable technical glitch. The music Riccardo’s band plays is a fairly interesting form of art rock with a perceptible influence from modern Marillion, so we wish him and his crew plenty more success. Jennifer, or Sylf, has a bright future ahead too, as long as she stays true to her musical vision so far and keeps “obeying” her otherwise very soft-hearted father. He visibly enjoyed every single string he touched during the Trieste show, and maybe that will encourage him to take on more solo ventures, live and in the studio, which of course will always come second to Steve’s future projects with Marillion.
Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Setlist:
Steve Rothery Band:
1. Morpheus
Sylf:
2. Fade Into You (Mazzy Star cover)
3. Opia
4. Northern Star
5. In the Dark
Riccardo Romano Land:
6. Invisible to the Eyes
7. Compass Rose
8. Letter
9. The King
10. Echo of Solitude
11. Dragonfly
12. Laughing Star: Part Two
13. Sandcastles
Marillion:
14. King
15. Kayleigh
16. Lavender
17. Cinderella Search
18. Incubus
19. Slainte Mhath
—Encore 1—
20. Sugar Mice
21. The Last Straw
—Encore 2—
22. Afraid of Sunlight
