Smallman live @ Pro-Rock's birthday night

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Encountering Marillion

There's always the aftershock and the utter bliss following a concert that truly satisfied and surpassed my expectations, that I try to hold on to for as long as possible. Now I'm thinking that this is without a doubt one of the best live shows I've eperienced in my life. It was defintely much, much more than I expected and was prepared for. The concert started on time (for once, thank you!), the sound was exceptionally great, even for the Winter Palace acoustics, the lighting atmospherics - perfect, H's voice - like a prayer for rain in the desert, a.k.a. heavenly. His version of Fish's songs were really very good, however much I would have liked to see the origial performing them himself.

I was thinking, while listening to the artists' albums, that Hogarth's Marillion is a much more hopeful experience than that of Fish. Fish is all about anger, guilt and pain. H is about soaring, believing, angelic love and uplifting hymns of faith. Those really are the two different faces of the coin, yet it is one and the same coin either way. Just depends which face you want to look at in this moment.



If I tried to describe what I witnessed tonight, I'd probably compare it to an ocean of utter bliss pouring out from the stage. An ocean carrying you from the deepest abyss to the highest wave. Someone said that Marillion's sound is "like a spaceship crashed into a cathedral," which, in a way, is the key to my very soul. Can't wait 'till we meet again. Until then, "use the pain"...