Marillion
‘Marillion Weekends Convention XXII.’ (Day Two)
10 May 2025, from 9:15 PM to 11:35 PM
Padua / Gran Teatro Geox / Italy
Padua is Padua! Incredibly convenient for day-trip concert visits, especially for everyone based in the western half of Slovenia. And after two years we were back there for a new Marillion convention. A gathering of the band’s most devoted fans, and the band themselves, at a one-of-a-kind, exclusive concert. Two consecutive ones, completely different from each other, to be precise! Day One was already behind us. As part of the first day’s festivities, the band played almost the entire Marbles album, which most fans of this revered British outfit consider their greatest achievement across their entire career.
Day Two promised another unforgettable experience. Hard to compare, because the setlist Marillion kicked off with at nine in the evening, compared to Day One of the Marillion weekend convention, was pulled from a completely different galaxy! Old-school. With most of the show focused on material from the eighties and nineties.
Once again, time and space dissolved. Marillion built the backdrop of their one-of-a-kind musical world — which we stepped into for two hours and twenty minutes of unbroken bliss — right from the opening, with a string of tracks that firmly belong under the heading of ‘rarities’. Not only did they dig deep into the era when Fish was fronting the band — the most commercially successful period in their history — they also peppered the first part with two rarities from the Seasons’ End album, ‘H’s very first record, which, like the opening Clutching At Straws classic Slàinte Mhath, are extremely rare in the live repertoire (The Uninvited Guest and, especially, Holloway Girl right on its heels). The brilliant Afraid Of Sunlight single that should have been messing with pop chart radio playlists but came out in the mid-nineties — I’m talking about the fantastic Beautiful — discharged all that opening voltage, though it did nothing to ease the goosebumps, the raised hairs, or the raw emotion crackling through the venue.
An even bigger shock followed! The title track of the debut album, Script for a Jester’s Tear. A classic that Marillion last performed live more than 30 years ago! Was I dreaming? That unique world genuinely hypnotised you. Carried you away. Somewhere far. The vibes were unbelievable. And the band managed once again to recreate exactly what their fans come for. A world that stirs passions and unlocks the most carefully guarded tangle of emotions — the ones we keep hidden in everyday life. ‘H’ sings the Fish-era classics in his own way, of course. Simply because he’s cut from completely different cloth to his famous predecessor.
Then the shift to the band’s commercial peak and the album Misplaced Childhood (1985). The biggest hit of their career, the evergreen Kayleigh, then the slightly smaller hit single Lavender, followed by the third section of Bitter Suite bridging into the album’s third single, the anthemic Heart Of Lothian. The feeling is indescribable, with over 3,000 wide-open throats and stretched vocal cords! The final third of the main set belonged to the band’s nineties output! After the Seasons’ End classic The Space and the title track masterpiece from Afraid Of Sunlight, Marillion also wove in a section from their most artistically sophisticated and conceptually refined achievement, Brave (1994), and closed the main set with the album trio Wave–Mad–The Great Escape!
Already at the encore? Impossible. Where did 110 minutes of concert go? The band returns to the stage. And launches into? The twenty-minute progressive suite The New Kings. Honestly, Marillion couldn’t have surprised us more. They stick a track released in 2016, from the penultimate album F.E.A.R., right at the tail end of the night. They clearly love playing it. A piece of cascading mood swings and peak theatrical command from the brilliantly animated Steve Hogarth — who has finally, in recent years, made peace with the distinguished silver of his hair — is without question a chapter and a story all of its own in the vivid creativity of this long-running outfit. A highlight in its own right.
But it’s not over yet. The band decided to extend the set by 20 minutes compared to the first night, and another unmissable encore followed. In the company of the mixed-voice choir Flowing Chords, who squeezed onto the centre of the stage between Kelly and Mosley, right behind ‘H’s stool and keyboards. The band opened and closed the second encore as a tribute to the current album An Hour Before It’s Dark (2023). That, too, was a very unusual choice, given that the peaks of this band’s discographic output lie considerably further back. And yet — you can’t fault the completeness of it. The band wasn’t indifferent to anything! What truly shocked in the finale itself was the trio of songs sandwiched between the two new tracks. First, Marillion surprised with the revved-up Go!, taken from the slightly overlooked marillion.com (1999) album, then thrilled with the fantastic ballad Easter (Seasons’ End, 1989), where the choir really came into its own, and delivered yet another highlight in the only This Strange Engine (1997) classic performed on both evenings — Man Of A Thousand Faces.
These are the kinds of nights you wish, as a fan, would never end — but they have to. Marillion delivered more than we’d dared hope for. Over two days, they flat-out killed it. In every sense. They are masters of theatrical drama and high-voltage atmosphere, occasionally loaded to the brim with grandeur! The performance is flawless. ‘H’ retains every last bit of his vocal excellence and stage-side playfulness. The band proves time and again that they’re ageing in a way that only makes them better and better. Can you even get better, with a road already travelled like the one behind Marillion? An evening with this magnificent band, fully loaded with a supremely internalised feel for the flawless delivery of sonically perfect harmony, atmospheric elusiveness, and total performance commitment — all of it permeated by the quintet’s sheer joy in everything they touch — embodies the concept of an absolute ‘untouchable’: a one-of-a-kind of genuine artistic greatness.
They’re supposed to release a new album next year. A tour will follow. If the old European continent still has a stone left standing by then, we’ll be meeting Marillion again soon!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Slàinte Mhath
2. The Uninvited Guest
3. Holloway Girl
4. Beautiful
5. Script for a Jester’s Tear
6. Kayleigh
7. Lavender
8. Bitter Suite (iii) Blue Angel
9. Heart of Lothian
10. The Space…
11. Afraid of Sunlight
12. Wave
13. Mad
14. The Great Escape
—encore I.—
15. The New Kings: I. Fuck Everyone and Run
16. The New Kings: II. Russia’s Locked Doors
17. The New Kings: III. A Scary Sky
18. The New Kings: IV. Why Is Nothing Ever True?
—encore—
19. The Crow and the Nightingale (with Flowing Chords)
20. Go! (with Flowing Chords)
21. Beyond You (with Flowing Chords)
22. Easter (with Flowing Chords)
23. Man of a Thousand Faces (with Flowing Chords)
24. Care (IV) Angels on Earth (with Flowing Chords)
