Live Review - Marillion, Manchester Academy, 20-Nov-05

All too often Marillion get written off as old dinosaurs living off their reputation. But as those who know their recent output can confirm, nothing could be further from the truth. Although they've existed since the early 80s, they're a band that have consistently re-invented themselves every couple of albums, and they've exorcised the ghost of their former frontman Fish many years ago. The content of their last few albums bears little resemblance to the music they played when the big Scotsman was still in the band. Many consider their last two albums to contain some of the best music of their career; still containing the essence of what made them great in the first place, but adding elements of trip-hop and dub to the mix.

This is the ninth time I've seen Marillion live, and the third time at the Academy One in Manchester. As usual, the place was pretty full, if not quite sold out, and the queue to get in almost encircled the building.

Support was Aziz & Dal. Guitarist Aziz Ibrahim once replaced Jon Squire in The Stone Roses, and also appeared on Ian Brown's later solo work. Here, accompanied just by Dal on tabla, plus a whole heap of guitar effects, he gave us a mostly instrumental set of what he describes as 'Asian blues'. Mixing elements of eastern and western styles, his guitar sometimes produced sitar-like sounds, sometimes Floydian blues flourishes, and a lot of music which reminded me of parts of Robert Plant's last album. His heavy use of echoplex even recalled the early days of Twelfth Night.

Marillion opened with "The Accidental Man", with frontman Steve "H" Hogarth dressed as a demented old-fashioned schoolmaster, wearing a mortarboard and wielding a cane, with which he took pretend raps over the knuckles of the front row. The band were tight as ever, Pete Trewethas laying down wonderful basslines, and Steve Rothery reeling off many magnificent soaring solos in his trademark style. H added to the instrumentation at times, contributing keyboards and pink Les Paul to several songs.

Marillion aren't one of those bands that plays the same set of standards every show; with such a high quality back catalogue the setlist varies hugely from tour to tour. This time the two hour set took in every post-Fish album with the exception the mostly dismal indie-flavoured "DotCom". They went right back to the very beginning of the H era with "Seasons End" and a rousing "King of Sunset Town". In contrast to their last show at this venue, they drew quite heavily from 1995's Afraid of Sunlight, which they'd ignored completely last time round. Gentler reflective songs like "Beautiful" and the recent top ten single "You're Gone" contrasted with the darker and more intense material such as "Mad" from Brave, and a surprise, "Cathedral Wall", from Radiation, the latter sounding a lot less like Radiohead than it sounded on record. Like the band themselves, Marillion's fanbase don't live in the past, and recent songs like the dub-driven "Quartz" from 2002's Anoraknophobia and the anthemic closing epic "Neverland" from last year's Marbles have already become crowd favourites. The only weak spot was the final encore, a rather silly Christmas song with H dressed as Santa, which we could have done without.

People who dismiss Marillion as 80s relics don't know what they're missing. They may be in their 40s, and might not wear the currently fashionably skinny ties or sharp haircuts. But they play great music, and in my book sounding great is far more important than looking cool.