Aside from Dinet, the entire band were about to return as the Steve Rothery Band. This first set gave them the chance to let us all hear what excellent musicians they were. You can’t get a better warm up than having the headline band preform it, brining on the headliner on as a guest and a doing it all with a stonking singer.
Just after 9 o’clock the hall went dark and Steve Rothery appeared through the dressing room door at the back of the stage. Dressed in his usual black, he looked very pleased to be there and perhaps a little stunned by the warmth of the reception. The crowd were, frankly, going bananas from the off.
As is his usual habit, the set began with three instrumental tracks from his “Ghosts of Pripyat” album. I enjoyed these; Gregor thought they were absolutely fantastic.
Steve then introduced Glasgow-based Martin Jakubski to lead us in song. Martin is singer in StillMarillion and, so, is no stranger to Fish era material. And lead us in song is exactly what he did. “Pseudo Silk Kimono” kicked off the “Misplaced Childhood” part of the evening and once “Kayleigh” began, Martin did a great job marshalling the very enthusiastic crowd who were singing every word.
This was the album that made Marillion superstars for that brief moment in rock history. In Kayleigh they coined a new name, now possessed by so many daughters of a certain age across the world. Those girls can proudly look up to their parents' great taste in music and smile! As an Edinburgh man, they also gave the city a song – Glasgow has so many fantastic tunes, it's great to claim “Heart of Lothian” as ours.
The ”Misplaced Childhood” journey continued at pace and played just as the album sounds…well, almost. It's hard for Martin to make this his own, he knows his job is to recreate another age for die-hard fans, but by changing a word here and there or altering the occasional emphasis he manages to put his own stamp on the album and the night, and that was good to see.
The first song I ever saw Marillion play was “Assassin”. That first low note followed by drummer Leon Parr’s tom-tom beat took me right back the Edinburgh Playhouse in 1987. Like the rest of the crowd I bellowed it out and loved every second. The final cry of “my friend” almost blew the roof off this, now swelter-box of joy. The cheers didn’t stop and morphed into a very poor version of “Seven Nation Army”. As a way to marshal the fans’ noise as much as anything else, the band joined in and Steve played a solo I am guessing he didn’t expect to play that night!
Two tracks from “Fugazi” – “Jigsaw” and “Incubus” bookended a particular favourite of mine “Freaks”. One of the great things about Marillion is that they produced some cracking B Sides and this is one of the best. If you’d been there, you’d not have needed my word for that; every single member of the audience sang it large.
Steve always acknowledges the absurdity of the encore. “We’ll go off, you’ll cheer and we’ll come back to play some more music” he said and, lo I came to pass. After the shortest of breaks, they were back. If there are two songs from the early catalogue that are more descriptive of the time and Marillion’s ambitions than “Garden Party” and “Market Square Heroes” I’ve no idea what they are. What I do know is that they were a fantastic way to end the first night in Cologne.
The following day we got to the venue early to enjoy the beer garden, the atmosphere and the sunshine. Unfortunately, it was not open when we arrived at 3 o’clock, and we were not the first to be standing at this locked gate. A queue to get in had already formed. We were told the gates would open at 6PM so we headed to the only bar within 10 kilometres of the venue and found ourselves intruding on a bar full of Cologne FC supporters watching their side play. They looked after us well for a couple of hours, although it seemed our team, who I think were in white, lost 3-1; even with the language barrier we gathered it was a travesty. Football eh?
We got back to the venue for the 6 o’clock opening. They queue had grown a bit and 6 o’clock slipped into 7 o’clock before the gates were unlocked and we got into the venue. We took our spot about four from the front and waited.
Once again, bang on 8, the lights went down and the support came on. Tonight, it was the Riccardo Romano Band. Riccardo is the Italian keyboard player in the SRB, though in this band he was playing bass. Joined by a cracking guitarist and pounding drummer. His set is short but powerful. He introduces a song called “I am the King” and tells us the best person to sing it was Martin Jakubski. This was a great song but made all the better for me by Martin. I have seen him sing countless times over the years with StillMarillion, but this is the first time I have heard him sing a song that was not written by Marillion, and, man, did he sing it! I thought it was his best vocal of the weekend and I very much hope I get a chance to hear him sing other, non-Marillion songs in the future. Riccardo did his job well and really got the crowd pumped up for the main event.
Once again Steve Rothery emerged in black and broke into a couple of instrumental numbers. I was struck by how much bassist Yatim Halimi added to these pieces. He was across every fret of his five string bass all weekend, no time more so than during these tracks.
Tonight it was the turn of “Clutching at Straws” to anchor the set. Martin took us through “Hotel Hobbies” and led the Cologne Choir as we all took on “Warm Wet Circles”. “Going Under” always reminds me that this album was the final goodbye from this era of Marillion. The band do this track justice and then some. “Incommunicado” provided the inevitable bounce moment down the front, “Slainte Mhath” give us the rocking groove we needed and then along came “Sugar Mice”. This was my highlight of the night. The vocal is great, the tune excellent but the guitar solo, in my view, defines the album and makes it clear how excellent a guitarist Steve Rothery really is.
