Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Peter Podbrežnik
Location: Cirkus Krone / Munich / Germany
Concert date: November 10, 2011
Attendance: 3,500
Ticket price: 56.70€ (category 1), 49.80€ (category 2 & 3), 39.90€ (category 4)
We got used to it long ago: if you love quality progressive rock and want to see your favorites at least once a year, you mostly have to hop over to the west, toward Italy, or, even more often, head north to Austria or Germany, where there’s no shortage of lively gigs for fans of musical refinement and experimentation. This time our destination was the Bavarian capital, Munich.
That’s where British art rock giants Marillion, also known as England’s best-kept musical secret, were stopping on a joint tour with the legendary Canadians Saga, who are enjoying a new live renaissance after the recent return of original singer Michael Sadler. So it promised to be a dream double bill of prog rock, courtesy of two legendary bands who, even in the new century, keep making albums on par with their most celebrated work of the eighties and nineties.
Marillion hit the Circus Krone stage first. On this tour they weren’t (yet) presenting a new studio album; instead, their set was mostly a selection of classics from different stretches of their magnificent career. The show opened, somewhat unexpectedly, with two “Holidays in Eden” (1991) classics, “Splintering Heart” and the ill-fated hit “Cover My Eyes”, which made fans of that excellent, commercially most seductive album in their story very happy. Steve ‘H’ Hogarth was in truly outstanding spirits that night and in phenomenal vocal form, accompanying it in his trademark theatrical style with lively gesticulation and energetic banter between stage and crowd.
One of the bigger surprises of their set was a rendition of the “This Strange Engine” (1997) classic “Man Of a Thousand Faces”, where Steve Rothery picked up a 12-string guitar. One of prog rock’s most refined guitar maestros wowed us once again with his solo bravura and his exceptional feel for guitar subtlety. For many, and above all for fans of the Fish era, the big surprise was “Kayleigh”, their biggest hit, which isn’t exactly a regular on setlists since the mischievous Scottish giant left, understandably so in its own way, since Mr. H gives it a completely different vocal interpretation than his predecessor.
The band’s newer era was far from neglected too: they surprised us with a superb take on “Somewhere Else”, the title track of the 2007 studio album of the same name, and with “Asylum Satellite #1”, one of the best pieces on their current studio effort “Happiness Is the Road” (2008). Here keyboardist Mark Kelly had a special moment of his own, with a majestic ambient passage riding on waves of Mellotron samples. Marillion are enormously proud of their double concept masterpiece “Marbles” (2004), which can safely be declared the best work of the H era. They played no fewer than four songs from it that night, starting with the fantastic “Fantastic Place”, then moving on to the poetic “You’re Gone”, the epic “Neverland” and the melodramatic “Invisible Man”, which they also used to close the show in the encore, after a string of ambient peaks.
During the latter, Mr. H didn’t forget to follow tradition and, in keeping with the lyrics, act out the aging, wheezing office clerk who drifted through life so awfully unnoticed that in the end he became completely invisible to everyone around him. Marillion are one of those exceptional prog rock bands you can never get enough of live, so it was hard to accept that their set had flown by so fast, but another legendary musical attraction was already waiting for us, freshly reinvigorated and thirsty to prove itself on stage once more.
We’re talking, of course, about the great art rock innovators Saga, who, alongside Rush, are probably Canada’s biggest musical sensation, at least as far as fans of rock ‘with brains’ are concerned. The aforementioned return of the charismatic Michael Sadler has infused the band, who used giant white ‘satellites’ for their stage set, with fresh live-show verve. After a short stint with Rob Moratti, they’ve thoroughly shaken up their live repertoire and added some standards that many followers thought they’d never (again) hear live.
With the exception of the album “House of Cards” (2001), from which they played two songs, they deliberately skipped the newer period and focused on their golden era, the first five albums. The emphasis was mostly on the self-titled debut from 1978 and the masterpieces “Worlds Apart” (1981) and “Heads Or Tales” (1983). Surprises often went hand in hand. The opener “Out of the Shadows”, the best piece off the splendid but these days all too often forgotten album “Behavior” (1985), pleasantly surprised the hall, packed to its last corner. The punchy, dynamic “Silent Knight” (1980) favorite “Careful Where You Step” then brought the atmosphere in the hall to a boil in the very next moment, signaling that every surprise would be followed, in turn, by a tried-and-true live classic.
You could also say we were all in ‘seventh heaven’ when we suddenly heard the famous, “Baba O’Reiley”-style intro to “How Long”, provided by keyboardist Jim ‘Jimbo’ Gilmour. Sadler effortlessly pulled along an extremely devoted audience who know all the lyrics by heart, and got them singing along on individual choruses. For “Time’s Up”, Gilmour (Korg synth and electric piano), Sadler (electric piano) and Jim Crichton (mini Moog with bass pedals) were each at their own keyboard rig, delivering their famous symphonic multi-harmonies in sync and conjuring up a futuristic ambient atmosphere.
As usual, the punchy side came courtesy of Ian Crichton and his scorching guitar riffs, and he was especially playful that night, in a way we’d never quite seen him before. He really came alive on “Ice Nice”, when after a long keyboard section it was time for his spacey solo. For the first time we also got to see drummer Brian Doerner (ex-Helix) on stage as a touring member; he’s been in Saga for six years now, but because of numerous operations and poor health he has more or less stayed away from concert stages in recent years. As mentioned, the only representative of the more modern era was the album “House of Cards”, from which they played “Once In a Lifetime”, where Gilmour made a very rare slip while laying down synth textures, and “The Runaway”.
Gilmour’s “starry” moment couldn’t be missed this time either, with the evergreen “Heads Or Tales” ballad “Scratching the Surface”. Sadler, who also tried his hand at guitar and bass that night, then started miming flying with his arms, and everyone could immediately tell it was the slightly comical overture to the unforgettable evergreen “The Flyer”, which we’d been quietly and eagerly hoping for. Of all the picks from “Heads Or Tales”, though, it was “The Pitchman” that surprised us most. For the encore opener they chose the evergreen “Wind Him Up”, which of course couldn’t be left out, and during which the entire audience pitched in on the chorus to help Michael one last time. They closed the show with the instrumental treat “Conversations”, and we surrendered once more to the multi-harmonic wizardry on the synths.
It would be pointless to try to decide which legendary band wowed us more that night, since the two are cut from completely different cloth. The incorrigible romantics and devotees of refinement will surely rate Marillion a bit higher, while fans of epic theatricality with a pinch of humor and somewhat rawer rhythms look more kindly on Saga. And then, of course, there are those of us who value both bands’ work equally, so for us this concert night was a double win. The wooden ceiling of Circus Krone, a hall originally built for circus shows, gives pretty much ideal acoustics, so on that front too we had perfect concert conditions. A music lover with a taste for art rock nuances simply couldn’t have wished for a nicer evening.
Setlist
MARILLION:
1. Splintering Heart
2. Cover My Eyes
3. King
4. Somewhere Else
5. The Release
6. Fantastic Place
7. Asylum Satellite #1
8. You’re Gone
9. Man Of A Thousand Faces
10. Kayleigh
11. Neverland
—encore—
12. Invisible Man
SAGA:
1.Intro
2.Out of the Shadows
3.Careful Where You Step
4.How Long
5.On the Loose
6.Ice Nice
7.You’re Not Alone
8.The Runaway
9.Once In A Lifetime
10.Framed
11.Time’s Up
12.Scratching the Surface
13.The Flyer
14.The Pitchman
15.Humble Stance
16.Don’t Be Late
—encore—
17.Wind Him Up
18.Conversations
Photo gallery
