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REVIEW: Marillion cause a twister at Brighton Dome

Ray A-J April 18, 2018

You’re not in Kansas any more.

ALL around you, Lavender fields glow in a warming golden tone as a picture ripples in and out of focus. The memory is hazy, but you can just make out a shadowy figure or two in the foreground of the image. Each figure moves frantically about the field, swapping things here and there. It’s clear now, there are five of them standing right in front of you, sweeping in and out, and scurrying about to get themselves together.

Slowly, the picture seems to spit and fizzle in front of your eyes, changing – morphing into a black pit of smoke and dust. A sudden bellowing of ghosts’ cheers climb the walls of the pit, filling the empty air around you and breaking the four figures into pieces shattered across the space. They sound so close – it’s deafening.

With the crash of a drum, blackness dissipates and flickers of sepia fields are forcing their way into your brain.

What are you seeing? What are you remembering?

A summer’s glow illuminates the fields and it’s clear now. It’s home.

As it turns out, you’re lost. Lost and too far from home. You don’t know where to go and the now the blackness is covering your eyes again. Clouding them over in a thick mist. Like Dorothy you’re inundated with memories, flashing through them in a desperate attempt to find a path back to Kansas. A yellow brick road in a field. But you’re not quick enough.

A lightning storm of green and red crashed down onto you, splits the memories in two, offering you to the hungry twister that’s right around the corner.

Marillion’s own Hogarth commands the twister in a tumbling motion to cascade round the room and draw up its cyclical shape, as he sings. And you’re pulled in with it, whirling in a crazed vortex as bright lights blind you. He’s got his Hooks in you, the man of a thousand faces, and you’re being drawn right into this tornado whether you like it or not.

The rest of the shadowy figures are playing their melodies, their weaving pleas, to lift the darkness and welcome you to this fantastic place. This eye of the storm known as the Brighton Dome. You’re in legendary progressive rock band Marillion’s grip now, and it’ll be another few hours before you can wake up from this fevered dream.

So take a look around while you can: the room around you is humblingly huge and circular (surprise, surprise, it’s a dome). Ornamental, and with tremendous gravitas, the area around you is like an arena almost or amphitheatre, rounded off with two floors all facing eagerly into the stage. It’s easy to get lost in this pit, with the sea of eager faces circling round the space ready to be picked up by Marillion’s twister. But every face is lightly wrinkled and full of a lifetime of dedication to the group. Chitter-chatter erupts from each crowd member, like cheery birds serenading the morning spring. If I didn’t know who Marillion were before, just glancing at the audience tells me everything I need to know. There has to be at least a hundred people here. No seat is spared, and the crowd are relieved to see their stars meet the stage with such a roar of energy.

And the energy never lets up. Every songs seems to contain a raging wind of effervescence that just explodes into a flurry of lights and flashes. The band is passionate, and so are their fans. They ought to be, given the band’s long history of crowdfunding, and even the host of the show gushes with gratitude for the fan’s unrelenting commitment. And after such a long run as forty years, Marillion have retained their compelling flare for the live show, displaying a greatly mesmerising display when performer touches stage. And as nothing more than an innocent bystander, I’m shocked at how captivating their live light extravaganza really is – I don’t even like the songs at all (in actuality their quite dull and unchanged) but it’s their flare for the dramatics and Hogarth’s crippling aneurysm style dancing that’s special.

This night isn’t just a gig, it’s a show. A grand production of atmospheric soundscapes set to the psychedelic backdrop of video footage, that looks like something out of a bad drug trip, with the occasional narrator steering you along the story’s highway. Of course they’re mixing both old and new tracks, integrating them into this blurry montage of images. And it has the whole audience chanting along with every song, as if there was a giant mirror cast up in front of the stage reflecting back Hogarth’s crazed screeches in the heavily sharp mix of cosmic guitar, synth and bass back at him.

In a pain stricken howl, Hogarth whisks the twirling tornado round once more, (yes we’re still in a tornado) fuelling it with the incredible deep reverbing of the bass, to pull the whole of the Dome arena through the roof and up into the sky. Cosmic clouds and daring stars are all that can be seen. The stratospheric galaxy of droning synthesisers and refined melodic guitar patterns mesmerises the audience, hypnotising them into a tall order of applause. Legs leave seats, as if with a mind of their own, planting themselves into the ground of the Dome. And suddenly everyone is on their feet, like pillars in the space coliseum. It must be the end of the gig because we’re all chanting for an encore – clapping desperately for one more song to drop us back down to earth and tumble us out of the tornado’s grip.

And when the show actually finishes, about thirty minutes later, I find myself not wanting to leave Oz.

Review by Ray A-J

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