Album
Marillion
Somewhere in London DVD
Racket (label)
23 December 2007 (released)
23 December 2007
This DVD encapsulates everything that Marillion live is about: The audience is absolutely rapt in attendance at the feet of their heroes and the band, in turn, treat the audience as a collection of old friends who deserve a show without compromise.
The strength of Marillion is in their relationship to their fans and they have always done their best to cater for those fans desires and pleasures in their music. The weakness of this is that is doesn’t stretch the music for want of stretching the relationship.
Musically this is a treat, with superb performances from the band and production values waaay better than the majority of in concert DVDs offer.
Steve Hogarths vocals are stunning, clean and emotive and Steve Rothery’s guitar work is quite stunning, wringing the last drop of feeling out of every chord. Pete Trewavas is solid as a rock on bass and the whole band performance comes over as a group effort – all parts working in sync and no one lead or feature is more important than the rest.
The individual tracks that stand out are the more expressive numbers: 'The Other Half’, 'A Voice From The Past’, 'Between You And Me’, a huge and explosive version of 'King’ and disc one finishes on a chilling 'Neverland’.
Disc 2 features 'Here’s Some We Played Earlier’ – a selection of numbers from what appears to be a previous gig that are all gentle and sweeping but without any real punch – 'Racket Club Rehearsal’ featuring tour rehearsals for a selected group of fans, some of whom look completely overwhelmed by the experience, and featuring another version of 'Neverland’ to that on disc 1.
There are also a selection of 5.1 mixes from the 'Somewhere Else’ album for those with overgrown stereo systems.
This is a treat for Marillion fans and an eye opener for those unfamiliar with the bands material but it can come over a little one-paced and bland unless you listen deeply to what is going on.
www.marillion.com
The strength of Marillion is in their relationship to their fans and they have always done their best to cater for those fans desires and pleasures in their music. The weakness of this is that is doesn’t stretch the music for want of stretching the relationship.
Musically this is a treat, with superb performances from the band and production values waaay better than the majority of in concert DVDs offer.
Steve Hogarths vocals are stunning, clean and emotive and Steve Rothery’s guitar work is quite stunning, wringing the last drop of feeling out of every chord. Pete Trewavas is solid as a rock on bass and the whole band performance comes over as a group effort – all parts working in sync and no one lead or feature is more important than the rest.
The individual tracks that stand out are the more expressive numbers: 'The Other Half’, 'A Voice From The Past’, 'Between You And Me’, a huge and explosive version of 'King’ and disc one finishes on a chilling 'Neverland’.
Disc 2 features 'Here’s Some We Played Earlier’ – a selection of numbers from what appears to be a previous gig that are all gentle and sweeping but without any real punch – 'Racket Club Rehearsal’ featuring tour rehearsals for a selected group of fans, some of whom look completely overwhelmed by the experience, and featuring another version of 'Neverland’ to that on disc 1.
There are also a selection of 5.1 mixes from the 'Somewhere Else’ album for those with overgrown stereo systems.
This is a treat for Marillion fans and an eye opener for those unfamiliar with the bands material but it can come over a little one-paced and bland unless you listen deeply to what is going on.
www.marillion.com