Progradar

‘Seasons End’, first released in 1989, is the last release in Marillion’s series of EMI era deluxe re-issues. It is also the most pivotal album in the band’s history as it marked the beginning of the ‘h’ era of Marillion with Steve Hogarth as the vocalist. Steve Hogarth has been around ever since and has imprinted his mark and class on the Marillion brand so indelibly that it is hard to remember what it felt like at the time when he emerged from virtually nowhere to replace Fish. This deluxe re-release gives us the opportunity to re-evaluate ‘h’s debut with the band.

Whilst we can look back on this album as an assured and high-quality album it belies a period of great uncertainty leading up to its recording and release. Following great success with albums and singles the future of Marillion was far from clear after they parted company with Fish in 1988. There was an assumption by many that the band could not survive without their charismatic front man, but the remaining band were confident in their music and knew that Marillion were far more than just a backing band for Fish. A largely fruitless search for his replacement commenced with tapes received and various auditions, (including Stuart Nicholson of Galahad). Meanwhile around the same time Steve Hogarth’s band How We Live was coming to a disappointing end due to a lack of success and he was thinking of leaving the music business entirely, such was his disillusionment. Ian Mosley spotted his potential from a tape sent in of Hogarth singing the How We Live song ‘Games in Germany’ and the band agreed to give ‘h’ an audition. Even at that point it took a mutual friend of Hogarth and Mosley, Daryl Way of Curved Air, to persuade ‘h’ to consider doing the audition as he was seriously considering joining the touring band of The The for a major tour instead. To cut a long story short Hogarth eventually agreed to join the band and they set about writing their first album together. So what did they manage to put together?

Most readers will know ‘Seasons End‘ well, and will be most interested in the remix and additional material, but there may be some new to this album. Therefore, we will go through the album, and there may be some things even the most devoted fan may not know or gain new insights into this album. After initial and deceptively easy writing sessions at the Mushroom Farm studios near Brighton the band convened at Hook End Manor Recording studios in Oxfordshire, formerly owned by David Gilmour. The ‘Seasons End‘ writing and recording sessions were deceptively easy for the band, as they came to discover at the far more problematic sessions for the follow-up album ‘Holidays in Eden.’ In truth the ease of the process was because much of the music had already been written in previous unused sessions with Fish for the album after ‘Clutching at Straws’ which, of course, did not happen. Additionally, before Hogarth joined, they had also looked for lyricists to help, including asking Van Der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill (who declined) and a peculiar meeting with the eccentric Viv Stanshall, which persuaded them that he was probably not a great fit! They eventually commissioned lyricist John Helmer (of the punk band The Piranhas) to produce some lyrics to go with their music, which definitely gave the album writing sessions quite a head start. Helmer composed the lyrics independently of the band, but in the fascinating accompanying video documentary ‘Seasons Change’, Steve Rothery did share he suggested the idea of doing a song about ‘Berlin’ due to the band’s connection with the city, and the concept for the lyric which eventually emerged as later song, ‘The Collection’. Significant elements for King of Sunset Town, The Uninvited Guest, Seasons End, Berlin and The Space… (plus the eventual ‘B-Sides The Release and The Bell in the Sea) were all in place for the album which the band worked on together to hone with Hogarth.

What all the band agree upon is that there was immediately a chemistry with Hogarth which reinvigorated the band, who felt rather liberated from the shadow of their former front man. It was also clear that this album was not going to sound like some of the more baroque old style progressive rock with which they had emerged in the early 80’s. It is apt that the first song on ‘Seasons End‘ is also the first song Steve Hogarth sang in his audition outside Pete Trewavas’ house (as it turned out he was allergic to Trewavas’ cats!) One of the things which impressed the band and helped persuade them to offer Hogarth the vocal role was his ability to immediately improvise the vocal melody in the audition. In his excellent autobiography ‘Marillion, Misadventures and Marathons’ Mark Kelly recalled: ‘By the time he got to the refrain “watch a big wheel turning round…” we knew we had our singer’. Hearing Hogarth belt that out so dramatically and clearly on this remix one can understand the excitement of the band back then – there was definitely something special about this guy! Apparently, some of the music for King of Sunset Town is based on the aborted ‘Sunset Hill’ song with Fish (on the bonus disc of the 1999 remaster of ‘Clutching at Straws’), but a comparison will show King of Sunset Town is a polished and stirring piece a very long way from the embryonic ‘Sunset Hill’. There is an atmospheric synth, bass and drums opening before Rothery comes in with an anthemic guitar line, and the song recedes to the vocal section and Hogarth’s memorable opening line:

A Ragged Man come shuffling through, A Puppet King on the 4^th of June

The original lyric was largely written by John Helmer, but whilst the album was being recorded the Tianenmen Square massacre was occurring in China on June 4^th, 1989, watched with horror by the band on the TV news at Hook End Manor studios. Hogarth incorporated elements of that event in the lyrics, including the rhyming ‘puppet king’ of Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping and a later reference to ‘Before the 27^th came…’ about one of the units of the Chinese army sent to attack the protestors. It is a testament to Hogarth’s lyrical skill that the introduction of this theme helped elevate an already good song with a fantasy feel into one of the finest opening songs on any Marillion album with a contemporary political perspective. It certainly announced Hogarth as a significant talent in his own right with his own distinctive lyrical and vocal skills. It also marked that the band were moving away from the intensely personal ‘confessional’ type introspection of much of Fish’s lyrics, and focusing on a wider range of issues and subjects.

Famously Hogarth had a bucket of tapes for ideas and from it he produced the almost complete and wonderful Easter, originally intended for his band How We Live. Rothery added a beautiful, lilting guitar solo, apparently improvised from the start in the form which is still played today – intuitive, fluid and evocative. Jean Pierre Rasle’s pipe playing added a subtle Irish flavour to the song. Hogarth has described it as his ‘Skye Boat Song’ for the Irish, and shared in his ‘Corona Diaries’ podcast that it is partly inspired by the poem ‘Easter 1916’ by W.B. Yeats. The gentle folky, melodic style is certainly a world away from the caustic, rocking anger of much of ‘Clutching at Straws’, signalling that this band was going in quite a different direction, and it remains one of the finest songs in the Marillion musical canon. The Uninvited Guest is a very different beast, with its origins in some ideas played around with at the aborted Dalnagar castle sessions with Fish in 1988. Ian Mosley starts the piece with a quirky drum part before the band drive it along at quite a furious pace, but with a hint of whimsy although the lyrics are rather sinister. The Uninvited Guest ends with a ‘cuckoo’ noise, indicating an invasion into our nest. Lyricist John Helmer has revealed it was about the shadow of AIDS in the 1980’s, the ultimate unwanted ‘guest’ in sexual relationships. Hogarth tweaked some of the lyrics and there may be a tongue in cheek reference to the previous singer, or maybe not?!

One of the most prescient songs on Seasons End is the outstanding title song with Helmer lyrics about climate change. A simple chiming guitar riff slowly emerges from the synth mists along with Hogarth’s mournful voice and there’s a real feeling of something portentous as the song builds. This is another piece with its roots in the Dalnagar sessions and an embryonic version of the music with different lyrics can be heard in ‘Beaujolais Day’ (another song available on ‘Clutching at Straws’ 1999 remaster. Fish later recycled some of the lyrics for ‘Fortunes of War’ and ‘Just Good Friends’.) This thought-provoking piece is a real showcase for Hogarth’s vocal range, rising gradually in passion. There is a sense of magisterial progression as the song gathers power but with restraint up to a tasteful guitar solo and an orchestral keyboard peak (which always made it a prime candidate for adapting for the 2019 ‘With Friends with the Orchestra’ project.) Hogarth’s evocative, echoing final words: ‘You never miss it till it’s gone, so say goodbye, say goodbye’ bring the main theme to a close but Marillion flow on with a wistful coda of tinkling synths, a subtly floating guitar motif, gentle throbbing bass and shimmering cymbals, whilst in the distance ‘h’ dreamily reprises some of the lyrics. It is a haunting, gorgeous finale to an ageless song still sadly relevant today.

Steve Hogarth shared in the ‘Corona Diaries’ that a waving hand from a window in Holloway Women’s prison was the inspiration for his emotive lyric of Holloway Girl, and is one of only two songs from ‘Seasons End‘ which was fully formed in the studio writing sessions with nothing drawn from previous sessions. Strangely, in the ‘Seasons Change’ documentary Hogarth stated that he has ‘never been quite been sure about it’. I view this as one of the most under-rated Marillion songs. Right from the start with Pete Trewavas’ unique opening playing the pick over his bass strings to give that distinctive metallic intro into Rothery’s subtle spectral guitar line as the tempo and volume increases to Hogarth’s impassioned cry ‘One day Freedom will unlock your door, so hold on, believe on…’ this is a song which grabs you and speaks for many of the poor inmates of the prison. Hogarth learned from a TV documentary that many Holloway inmates would have benefited far more from help with their mental health issues than from incarceration. This is also a real collaboration musically between ‘old Marillion’ and ‘new boy’ Hogarth with ‘h’ writing the music for the verses and Mark Kelly composing the more anthemic chorus passages.

Berlin is a city with a special meaning for Marillion as they recorded their most successful album ‘Misplaced Childhood’ there at the famous Hansa studios, and it turns out Hogarth also had some interesting experiences in this city with such a turbulent history. It probably helps to recall that Berlin was still a divided city back in 1988/9 when Rothery suggested it would make a good theme for a song to lyricist John Helmer. Berlin is probably the song most similar to their earlier much more old school ‘Prog’ style. This is hardly surprising as musically it can trace its roots back to the Dalnagar sessions with Fish in ‘Story from a Thin Wall’ (available on ‘Clutching at Straws’ 1999 remaster). Indeed, musically ‘Story from a Thin Wall’ is almost identical to Berlin so it seems they felt they were on to something. Fish later used the powerful lyrics from that song on ‘Family Business’ on his solo debut, but Marillion replaced them with some excellent new lyrics. Berlin may be one of Helmer’s best lyrics as his words seemed to capture the tense, desperate atmosphere of a city split by a wall built by a dictatorship imprisoning its population on one side and a rather hedonistic lifestyle on the other side, seemingly feverishly generated by the shadow of oppression over the wall. Hogarth sings it with such intensity and the band put on a stellar performance. An atmospheric opening led by Rothery’s delicately played guitar, supported with some suitably restrained bass and percussion, supports the scene setting vocals of decadence and desperation from Hogarth… and for the first time ever in a Marillion song a suitably seedy saxophone from Phil Todd emphasises the decadent ‘Cabaret’ feel of this city. It simply reeks of Berlin of that era. The whole piece recedes in the middle section with crows ominously crowing over a synth and guitar soundscape. The atmosphere changes and the tempo quickens as Hogarth screams passionately ‘With a Hole in our Hearts’. The whole band drives forward with a tidal wave of rock as Hogarth recites a litany of ‘the quick and the dead’, presumably all the sorts of varied people who yearned to cross the wall to freedom, many of whom were shot over the years. Balancing along the top Rothery teeters with a tortured and twisted guitar solo reflecting such desperation. This all fades to a mournful synth wash with ‘h’ reprising the opening lines about ‘the Mascara’d Blonde from the Berliner bar’, seemingly fated to endlessly repeat her prostitute life without hope. Berlin was a powerful statement, clearly designed to be a centrepiece of the album, with outstanding lyrics and great rock music fused together with such skill and impact… but the good thing is that in some ways that the Fall of the Berlin Wall less than a year after the album was released soon made this feel very much like a period timepiece – and that’s not a bad thing!

On the original vinyl release of ‘Seasons End‘ the little gem After Me was not included, and was released as the B-side for the single release of Hooks in You. It was available on the CD and cassette version and it is rightly on this deluxe edition in all it’s delicate beauty. Rothery picks out a gorgeous acoustic guitar intro with Hogarth’s richly resonant voice dripping with regret, singing words written for his then wife about how little time they were spending together. Halfway through a tinkling, shimmering keyboard cues in a much more assertive passage with the whole band backing his increasingly impassioned vocals. The finale with Rothery’s climbing arpeggio guitars is derived from the final section of another 1988 Dalnagar session song, ‘Voice in the Crowd’, (which as the name suggests Fish took the lyrics for the title song of his ‘Vigil’ debut solo album, and is another song available on the 1999 ‘Clutching at Straws’ remaster edition) – but this is a song which Hogarth very much owns with his own rather personal and touching lyrics.

Hooks in You was formed in the studio with Hogarth out of a cracking riff Rothery was jamming which Hogarth loved and they pulled together a cracking 3-minute rock/pop song. The high energy rock launches in spectacularly with drums and bass in 7/8 under the chopping guitar riff before a keyboard fanfare underpins that infectious Rothery riff, which Rothery has likened to It Bites whom he was into at the time. The lyrics are lightweight fluff about a girl having ‘Hooks in You’ – it’s simple, straightforward and just great fun. There’s no deep meaning or complexity – it’s just rock and roll, and also indicated that Marillion were not afraid to dive into some of the Van Halen type ‘hair rock’ type anthems popular at the time. The direct commercial appeal of this song marked it out as a single but in hindsight it may not have been the wisest choice as the first single of the album as it was so unlike anything Marillion had ever released, and it only reached Number 30 in the U.K. charts.

The finale of the album is the expansive and elaborate drama of The Space… In the ‘Seasons Change’ documentary Rothery shares that the music for this piece had its origins again in the 1988 Dalnagar sessions which he says was inspired by seeing Pink Floyd at Wembley. One can certainly hear the more expansive ambition of this piece with a relentless orchestral keyboard string intro with Hogarth’s echoey voice describing the fickleness of fate, as Mosley and Trewavas join in rhythmically. Rothery’s guitar swoops wraith-like above this increasingly weighty musical vehicle as it drives forward. The song then opens out with the refrain ‘The Space around the stars is something that you know’ with some lovely flowing piano from Mark Kelly underpinning the main driven theme. The initial opening section is recapitulated with added power, before the whole piece drops into a more introspective and restrained passage. However, this is a brief respite before the main musical storm returns with particularly Rothery’s overarching manically spasming guitars and Kelly’s choir keyboards. The final section commences with the echoing Hogarth proclaiming anthemically:

‘Everybody in the Whole of the World, Feels the same inside, Everybody in the Whole of the World…’

The band take it home majestically with sweeping synths and stately drumming and The Space… seemingly just fades away into the distance. It’s quite a dramatic and ambitious finale for the album. Hogarth explained in the 1997 remaster edition sleeve notes that the lyrics were partly inspired by seeing a tram in Amsterdam ripping the side off a car without even slowing down, and wondered whether the driver even noticed the great damage his vehicle had casually inflicted (indeed, the demo version of this song on the Blu-ray is called ‘Amsterdam’). Hogarth went on to state rather poetically ‘I have occasionally been the  tram. And I have often been the car.’  There is also a rather curious song writing credit for this song, which apart from the usual band members, includes Colin Woore, Geoff Dugmore and Fergus Harper. These were all previous band mates of Steve Hogarth in The Europeans (and Woore was also in How We Live). It eventually emerged that Hogarth had used the exclamatory ‘Everybody in the Whole of the World’ vocal section in an unreleased song by The Europeans called ‘Wrap me in the Flag’, and the opening vocal melody of ‘Amsterdam / The Space…’ had its origins in a How We Live song which never came to anything. Hogarth had used those sections thinking that as he had more or less written them that it was OK to recycle them in this song, but at the time of the album release this did cause a bit of a controversy. These former Hogarth band mates were subsequently all co-credited on the 1997 remaster, and it appears that Hogarth and Woore are now reconciled on this issue as the last line of this edition’s sleeve notes is a ‘thank you’ to Colin Woore for inspiring The Space… – who knows how we influence each other sometimes?

That’s the album – so what do you get with the deluxe edition, particularly if you are already familiar with the original album?

Michael Hunter has done the remix with his usual care and attention as is his way – he’s like an extra member of Marillion such is his intuitive relationship with the band and their music. To be fair, the original mix of this album by Nick Davis, who on the back of his good job on his first album as a producer went on to produce Genesis, was already of a very good standard. What we do not have here is the totally transformative experience heard with the massive improvement in the remix of ‘Fugazi’ which was frankly rather shoddy originally. This remix is definitely more dynamic and ‘brighter’ (if that makes sense) with more of the subtle nuances standing out, such as the ‘Cuckoo’ at the end of The Uninvited Guest. Seasons End does seem to particularly benefit from the remix with Hogarth’s gorgeous tone of voice full of restrained power and feeling and Kelly’s keyboards so lush. The improvements are not startling or revelatory which is a compliment to the original production, but they are noticeable. Of course, one’s perceptions about the differences in this remix will be largely affected by the quality of one’s sound system. The more you invest in such systems the more you are likely to hear some subtle improvements and differences… and if you’ve spent a LOT of money on your system you will REALLY want to hear those differences, even if in truth you may need the auditory senses of a bat to actually hear them! (😊)

As is customary with these deluxe editions CD’s 2 & 3 are of a live gig associated with this album. On previous deluxe editions these shows have been of shows contemporary with the release of the album, but on this occasion they have chosen to use their brilliant performance of the album at the U.K Marillion weekend in Leicester in May 2022. This has been the source of some disappointment from some fans because…  well, I’m not entirely sure why? Some fans just don’t like change, which is ironic when you consider this album marked the biggest change in the history of the band. My guess the main reason the band did not include a recording from their first tour with Hogarth in 1990 is that there is already a cracking version of the 1990 Leicester show from that tour released on the ‘The Official Bootleg Box Set Volume 2’ in 2010. Normally that would have been the ideal live show to include with such a deluxe edition, but if the band had included it one can already hear some fans complaining that this material had already been released… and to be fair they would have had a point. However, another reason for using the 2022 live recording could be to show just how well this gem of an album has aged in the last 30+ years. The Leicester De Montfort 2022 show is an excellent performance with fantastic clarity of production and thrilling performance. Another difference between the 1990 show and the 2022 show (apart from the total lack of any Fish era material) is that the audience were now so much more familiar with the album and sang along and rapturously received such masterpieces as Easter, Seasons End, Berlin and the stellar, celebratory B-Side The Release with such joy. Holloway Girl really shines in this show, right from Trewavas’ cool metallic bass pick intro to Rothery’s steepling guitar runs and Hogarth’s impassioned vocals. This recording also completely dismisses any notion that Hogarth is starting to lose his voice – yes, he’s over 30 years older so his voice has aged and is not identical to 1989, but in some ways he has grown into these songs so much and wears them with such assurance, confidence and passion. Oh… and the other reason you won’t find me moaning about having the 2022 show on this deluxe edition is because I was there – it was a stunning gig and joyous experience. The main show featured only the ‘Seasons End‘ album and the associated B-Side The Release as the band now realise that one instrument they really do need to protect for a full three intense nights in a row is Hogarth’s voice, particularly as he does not hold himself back with the intensity and passion of his vocals. CD 3 comprises the encore of only two songs, but when those two pieces are the excellent and stirring epics of Gaza and The Leavers that was quite enough to satisfy the crowd.

The main attraction for many of these deluxe editions are the extras, including the ‘Seasons Change’ documentary in which each band member and the producer Nick Davis are interviewed at the legendary ‘Crooked Billet’ pub in Oxfordshire where Steve Hogarth made his debut live with the band in a packed room of a country pub with hundreds in the roads outside! Previous editions have often interviewed the band collectively, but an advantage of individual interviews is that you hear more from band members whom are usually more reticent in a band / group setting. It is particularly interesting to hear more from drummer Ian Mosley, whom you can tell STILL loves being in this rock band after an early career of theatre and session work. This documentary is well produced by Tim Sidwell whom is becoming a past master at these presentations by Marillion.

The Blu-ray includes the album in 5.1 Audio which reveals the album in gorgeous surround sound clarity if you have the equipment. It sounds massive, expansive and more resonant in this splendid 5.1 version. The B-Sides and Bonus tracks from the ‘Seasons End‘ 1997 remaster are also included on the Blu-ray, including the excellent The Bell in the Sea and The Release. These are two more songs with roots in the 1988 Dalnagar sessions also available on the ‘Clutching…’ 1999 Remaster. ‘Tic-Tac-Toe’ provided a lot of the music for The Release, and ‘Shadows on the Barley’ was the basis for The Bell in the Sea. There will be some fans without that previous 1997 remaster disappointed that these tracks are confined to the Blu-ray on this edition. Interestingly there are also some previously unreleased demos of songs and song ideas, including a couple of cool string grooves from Dalnagar sessions which may explain just why this was a band who were confident that they still had something to offer without Fish. The Audio content is completed by a ‘Montreal Bootleg’ from a gig in 1990, presumably to satisfy the desire of some fans for an audio show from that era. As the name suggests the sound quality is not superior but for a bootleg it is very good quality, but to be honest if I want a show from this era I would put on the later ‘Rock Steady’ show.

The Blu-Ray is jam packed full of video content, including 3 promotional song videos which now look like curious time pieces. The Uninvited Guest does provide some fascinating imagery with Hogarth suspended in mid-air maniacally in an armchair! The previously released early documentary ‘Stoke Row to Ipanema’ is an interesting look back to a band striking out in a new direction with a new front man. Last and certainly not least, one of the crowning elements of this deluxe edition is the ‘Rock Steady’ Concert Film, which is the TV show recording of the audio show from Leicester De Montfort Hall in 1990, previously released on ‘The Official Box Set volume 2’ in 2010.  The quality of the performance and the filming is excellent, with plenty of great close ups of all the band members (although Kelly seemed a little under -represented in that department!) Looking back now it is hard to believe that this was Steve Hogarth’s first tour with the band, such is the incandescent and staggeringly confident nature of his performance. What is also remarkable is the assured way he handles the Fish era material, especially Warm Wet Circles and Script for a Jester’s Tear – he was not trying to be Fish, but inhabited these iconic songs with his own personality.

 Once again, the deluxe edition book and lyrics are decorated inside with some great artwork from Simon Ward and Rich Wilson provides some interesting sleeve notes. The box set artwork has caused some debate with some fans disappointed that much of the original cover design has been ditched or only subtly referenced. To be honest, I can understand why the band wanted to re-package the artwork. The original cover was a conscious effort at that crucial juncture in their career to remind fans that Marillion were still around with the original classic logo still in place (for the last time) and photographic imagery subtly referencing Fish era elements, such as the Jester’s face and hat. Fast forward 34 years later and there is absolutely no need for the band to re-use such self-conscious imagery and it felt entirely appropriate to leave the old logo and those other references well behind and use more subtly presented images of the Four Elements.

Personally, I can distinctly recall getting ‘Seasons End‘ when it first came out with some trepidation as I was a great Fish era fan. What was this ‘new bloke’ going to sound like and what he done to ‘my band’?! At the time I do remember thinking this is ‘pretty good’ – I may even have thought that rather grudgingly, such was my feeling for Fish at the time! However, as the years have gone by, I have increasingly come to realise that this album was far better than ‘pretty good’ to say the least. It is an excellent transition album, utilising some of the elements of their previous manifestation fused with a new style and sensibility introduced by an equally charismatic but very different front man.

What this deluxe edition of ‘Seasons End‘ most certainly does do is underline and remind us what an outstanding ‘debut’ album this was for the Hogarth era of Marillion. ‘Seasons End‘ was a magnificent re-birth of the band and ignited a different trajectory in their career, and this excellent deluxe edition cements its place as one of the finest albums in the history of Marillion.

TRACK LISTING:

CD One –  Holidays in Eden 2023 Remix

1. King of Sunset Town                                    
2. Easter                                                             
3. The Uninvited Guest                                    
4. Seasons End                                                  
5. Holloway Girl                                                
6. Berlin                                                              
7. After Me                                                        
8. Hooks in You                                                 
9. The Space…                                                   

CD Two –  Live at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, 29^th May, 2022) (pt 1)

1. King of Sunset Town                                    
2. Easter                                                             
3. The Uninvited Guest                                    
4. Seasons End                                                   
5. Holloway Girl                                                
6. Berlin                                                              
7. After Me                                                         
8. The Release                                                                                                          
9. Hooks in You                                                 
10. The Space…                                                    

CD Three – Live at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, 29^th May, 2022) (pt 2)

1. Gaza                                                                
2. The Leavers                                                   

BLU-RAY DISC

Audio Content:

‘Seasons End’ 2023  Michael Hunter Remix – 5.1 Audio Version:

• Same Track listing as CD 1

B-Sides, Demos & Early Versions 

• Strings Groove  (Dalnagar Castle – August 1988)
• String Groove (with Synths)  (Dalnagar Castle – August 1988)
• Amsterdam (The Space… Demo – March 1989)
• Easter (Demo – March 1989)
• Hooks in You  (Early Version – March 1989)
• At the End of the day (The Release – Early Version – March 1989)
• Sunset Town (M8 idea – H Dictaphone – March 1989)

(All tracks below previously released on 1997 remaster edition)

• The Uninvited Guest  (12” Mix)
• The Bell in the Sea
• The Release
• The King of Sunset Town  (Demo)
• Holloway Girl  (Demo)
• Seasons End  (Demo)
• The Uninvited Guest  (Demo)
• Berlin  (Demo)
• Bell in the Sea  (Demo)

Montreal Bootleg – Le Spectrum, 2^nd & 3^rd February, 1990

1. The King of Sunset Town
2. Slainte Mhath
3. Script for a Jester’s Tear
4. Easter
5. Warm Wet Circles
6. That Time of the Night (The Short Straw)
7. Holloway Girl
8. Berlin
9. Seasons End
10. Kayleigh
11. Lavender
12. Heart of Lothian
13. Hooks in You
14. The Space…

Video Content:

• ‘Seasons Change’  – Documentary Film (83 Mins)

• ‘From Stoke Row to Ipanema’ –  Documentary Film (63 Mins)

• Rock Steady Concert Film

Live at Leicester de Montfort Hall, 1990  (90 mins)

Promo Videos

• Hooks in You
• Easter
• The Uninvited Guest

MUSICIANS:

Steve Hogarth – Voice

Steve Rothery  –  Guitars

Mark Kelly  –  Keyboardsm 

Pete Trewavas  –  Bass

Ian Mosley  –  Drums & Percussion

With:

Phil Todd – Saxophone  (Berlin)

Jean Pierre Rasle  – Pipes  (Easter)

THANKS:

Progradar would like to thank Fraser Marshall of the website:

‘Marillion – Explanations of Song Elements’ for his permission to refer to his blog about some of the background to the songs.

Other information is available at:

http://marillionations.blogspot.com/

Sources include:

• Jon Collins – Marillion biography – ‘Separated out’
• Mark Kelly – ‘Marillion Misadventures and Marathons : the Life and Times of Mad Jack’
• Steve Hogarth – ‘The Corona Diaries’ podcast

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Year of Release : May 19th,  2023 (Original version released in 1989)

• RECORD LABEL: Parlophone Records

• LINKS: http://www.marillion.com/

• FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/MarillionOfficial/