Marillion - The Not Quite Christmas Tour 2005

3 December 2005 - Vredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands

I consider myself as a 'green' Marillion fan, because I knew them only for about 2 years. About half year back I had noticed that Marillion would perform live in Holland, so I grabbed the chance to watch them live. Initially I got the ticket for their show at 013 in Tilburg because the show in Vredenburg had already sold out. But in the end I got exchange tickets from someone. Personally I preferred to go to Vredenburg because there are seats there (I can't compete with tall Dutch people to stand on the field :)).
Later on the show in Tilburg also sold out, and these were the only shows that sold out during this tour. Long live Marillion fans in Holland!

The Vredenburg door was open few minutes after 7 in the evening, and the crowd suddenly filled in the hall. Me and my wife arrived quite early, and we managed to get seats on the center-left balcony at medium height; it was a very nice view to the stage. The Vredenburg hall is originally built as classical music concert hall, with seats layers and small stage area in the middle of the hall. For the Marillion show they closed about a quarter of the hall, and the stage was set facing one side only, with simple curtain as the background.

The stage was already arranged for Gazpacho, the opening act. They entered the stage some times after 8. I missed the opening because I was still busy in t-shirt corner.
The music style of Gazpacho is quite similar with Marillion, with additions of violin and flute sounds.
In general their performance was good. Especially I liked the bass sound, very deep and dynamic. Steve Rothery performs the solo in one song from their newest album, and the crowd cheered loudly when Steve appeared on the stage for that solo. The rest of the songs were OK, and they closed their act with traditional Irish tune led by the violin and flute. It reminded me of The Corrs, but with much louder and heavy style.

After that the stage was rearranged. The drum set and the keyboard set on the back, a sound mixing table with a chameleon puppet on the left side (from the audience point of view), a microphone stand at the middle with set of percussions. Then the crews brought a keyboard to the middle, complete with a cup for mister H.
After some sound checks, which in my opinion were quite long, the stage was darkened. There were christmas lights hanged on the drums, the keyboard set and the keyboard at the front. Then they entered!
The first song was An Accidental Man. H wore a horse jockey suit, complete with the whip :). Pete Trewavas on the left side was casual and energetic, Steve Rothery on the right side was calm. Mark Kelly was busy with his L-shape keyboard set (reminded me of Tony Banks), and Ian was almost buried behind his drum set.
They continued directly with When You're Gone, Beatiful, Gazpacho, then Enlightened and Genie. After that the beautiful Fantastic Place was played, continued by Out of This World.
Then H sat behind his keyboard, asked the audience, 'What would you like to hear?'. He changed the planned set list :). Yes, he sang the opening of Easter. I think Pete was a bit surprised :). Then they performed The Great Escape. Then H sang Hey Jude, which made the others left the stage, until he asked the audience to shout, 'Mark Kelly, where are you?' :). They played The Party and more songs, and I really enjoyed the sound of Pete's bass when they performed Quartz.
Pete was incredibly energetic in all songs, jumping and moving from side to side. Steve Rothery for few occasions visited the left side stage and his guitar sound was wonderful! H was attractive as usual, played the percussions, some times played guitar, and I really wonder how he managed to maintain his vocal quality. His voice was always clean and I could not notice any mistune or lowering tone technique.

For the first encore they performed King of Sunset Town, Seasons End, and Cathedral Wall. Then they gave the second encore, Separated Out and Neverland. It was already about half past eleven at that time, so we went out from the hall because we need to catch the train home. I knew later on that they performed one more encore, The Erin Marbles. In total they performed for 2 hour and 45 minutes!

In general I am satisfied with the show. The sound was OK, although at some points it was too loud for me. The view was great, with simple but nice lighting effects. The audiences were also incredible, sang in almost all songs (a nice choir in Easter). It's a pity that I did not stay until the end of the show.
Maybe next year!

To see more stories (and lots of pictures) about the show, visit these sites:
* http://www.marillion.nl/
* http://www.askew.nl/marillion/#03122005

Complete setlist:

An Accidental Man
You're Gone
Beautiful
Gazpacho
Enlightened
Genie
Fantastic Place
Out Of This World
Easter
The Great Escape
Hey Jude
The Party
Quartz
The Damage
Mad
Go !
Made Again
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The King Of Sunset Town
Seasons End
Cathedral Wall
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Separated Out
Neverland
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The Erin Marbles