Page 110 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

‘Most of tonight’s set

Marillion With Friends sounds more Radiohead
than Genesis.’
From The Orchestra

Birmingham Symphony Hall

Proggers pull off the band-with-
strings-and-brass trick with aplomb.

If success is the best revenge, then Marillion’s
enduring high profile as arena-filling Britprog
figureheads feels like a bold two-fingered salute to their
critics. More than 30 years after their commercial chart
peak, the Aylesbury quintet still command an impressively
large cult following despite scant support from mainstream
media or major labels. Their latest tour features a six-piece
chamber orchestra, which adds welcome lightness and
texture to otherwise often overwrought baroque’n’roll.
Frontman Steve Hogarth cuts an agreeably louche figure,
his swashbuckling stage persona falling somewhere
between Lord Byron and Lovejoy. Besides lending Marillion
a vague whiff of real rock-star charisma, Hogarth has also
helped steer them towards more contemporary, melodious,
art-rock territory. Most of tonight’s set sounds more
Radiohead than Genesis, although Steve Rothery’s set-
piece cosmic guitar solos remain unashamedly Floydian.
Drawing heavily on recent albums, the show is thick
with bombastic neo-prog epics like Gaza, The New Kings
and Power, although Hogarth’s impassioned delivery seems
better suited to more conventional, romantic power ballads
like The Sky Above The Rain and The Great Escape. The
expanded orchestral rearrangements are generally effective
too, used sparingly but crisp and lustrous. Impressively,
Marillion are one of the few bands who can perform with Steve Hogarth: a stage persona
falling somewhere between
an orchestra and sound less pretentious as a result.
Lord Byron and Lovejoy.
Stephen Dalton

The Cult The Cadillac Three Steve Hillage Band / Gong

London Hammersmith Apollo Los Angeles The Troubadour London Islington Assembly Hall
Pearls are revisited and deep cuts Nashville band bring a little bit of the The fine art of ‘pot noodling’.
resurrected on this 30th-anniversary South to California. The projections behind today’s incarnation of
victory lap for Sonic Temple. Southern rock travels better the further away Gong are so brain-skewingly psychedelic that
The Cult don’t actually celebrate the 30th from the south it gets, at least these days. an acid-laced migraine would only be a relief. Everyone
anniversary of their Sonic Temple album – the Nashville’s The Cadillac Three can play to 1,000-plus on and off stage is in the midst of a simultaneous
moment when the snaking riffs of Love melded people a night in the UK, but in the US they’re synaptic workout endeavouring to produce or process
perfectly with Electric’s heavy-rock upgrade – by consigned to places like fabled but tiny West a warp-speed proto-prog soundtrack. As a startlingly
playing the album in full. Oh no. By billing the evening Hollywood club The Troubadour. In truth, it suits them, apposite You Can’t Kill Me unfolds, pin-wheeling from
as A Sonic Temple - you’ll note the distinction – they and not just because the saloon-style decor is a match one spiralling riff to another, Daevid Allen’s face
get to mix up the order, jettison the album’s last two for their spit’n’dang mash-up of drawling outlaw appears briefly on screen, as if to tweak our noses from
songs and include some big hits and deep cuts. country and hard-edged rock’n’roll. All their the great beyond. It’s a 48-year-old composition, yet it
They are arguably a better singles band than an considerable energy is compressed on to the small sounds fresh, madly contemporary.
albums one, and the exhumation of rarely-played-live stage here, working up a buzz that’s sometimes absent The 2019 version of Gong, especially vocalist/guitarist
songs such as New York City and American Horse sees at their bigger shows. Kavus Torabi, not only maintain Allen’s startling
The Cult tighten their focus as they leave their Tonight’s small but sold-out audience is rewarded musical mischief, they also immortalise the late
comfort zone behind. Likewise Edie (Ciao Baby) and with a couple of teasers from upcoming album Gongmeister’s legacy with fresh material (a head-
the Led Zep-referencing Soul Asylum, on which they Country Fuzz, set for release in early 2020; Back Home spinning Forever Reoccurring, an astonishing Rejoice)
are augmented by the Leos String Quartet – a fact and the foot-stomping Crackin’ Cold Ones With The that invariably astounds.
that singer Ian Astbury is keen to impress upon the Boys proudly uphold the Cadillac Three tradition of The Steve Hillage Band (with the exception of Hillage
audience in the manner of a teacher admonishing singing about the South (the former) and necking and longtime partner/co-conspirator/keys/synth/sonic
a class of ungrateful school children. booze (the latter). manipulator Miquette Giraudy) also turn out to be
No such pontificating from guitar hero Billy Duffy, They claim to have spread their wings on the new Gong, and it’s a match made in heaven. Material from
who delivers favourites She Sells Sanctuary and Wild album, but here they still sound like a rock’n’roll band Hillage’s defining 70s albums (Fish Rising to Open)
Flower, alongside a muscular Rise, with all the brio of raising hell at the Grand Ole Opry. Yet for all their forms the core of tonight’s set and absolutely nobody’s
someone who’d otherwise be banging his head straw-chewin’, Dukes Of Hazzard schtick, The Cadillac disappointed. Hillage remains an uncommonly adept,
against a wall if his guitars were taken away from Three know how to knock out an anthem: White gloriously fluid virtuoso guitarist with a seductive,
him. And of course it’s all pompous, silly and Lightning and The South are oven-ready radio hits hypnotic tone, Giraudy (forming characteristic
overblown. This is The Cult, and you wouldn’t want just waiting to catch a break in the US. America’s soundscapes) cheerleads agelessly, as Torabi and Gong-
them any other way. loss, our gain. mates play out of their skin. All too much? Almost. WILL IRELAND
Julian Marszalek Dave Everley Ian Fortnam

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