“They say that some are born to burn, And some are born to give. They say that people live and learn, Some people only live and live.”
The Seasons End tour that followed the release of the band’s first post Fish album was a massive one. It took in over a hundred shows of which almost a half of which were in Canada and the US, but also included UK, EU and the band’s first ever show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 26, 1990. The material performed at most of the shows was about a 50/50 split of songs from Seasons End and Fish era. The band were fully aware of the fact that jettisoning their earlier material was not an option, nor something they were interested in doing as well. But by all accounts they based their decision at the time on what to perform on what Steve Hogarth felt comfortable with. They gave him a list of songs their catalog and asked him come up with the songs he would consider performing. What he selected, and a decision that still stands to this day, were the songs he felt he could convincingly apply his style to and also what lyrically he felt comfortable performing. Some of the songs he found either too personal to Fish or too gothic in lyric so he simply decided they weren’t for him. As well, he was fundamentally aware that he would need to deliver them with respect and that every eye at every show would be on him judging his worthiness in replacing a revered singer. So he didn’t try to. He simply performed them as felt right to him, and didn’t try to convince anyone he was better than Fish. There would be no costumes or makeup…that would come later, though not quite in the same way. He did, however, have a very cool set of white gloves hooked up to a Midi interface allowing him to trigger sounds including the Sax solo in Berlin. A clear plexiglass window would lower at times which he would “play”. It was pretty cool for the time. Everything from Seasons End was performed throughout the tour and at most shows. From the Fish era they played Kayleigh, Lavender, Slainte Mhath, Warm Wet Circles, That Time Of The Night, Incommunicado, Market Square Heroes and Script For A Jester’s Tear as well as Freaks at a few select shows and a one off of Sugar Mice. Overall a solid mix of both eras without the need to depend disproportionately on the earlier one.
Marillion did two swings through North America. The first Toronto show and my second time seeing the band live was at The Diamond Club (now The Phoenix Concert Theatre) on February 1 1990. It was a packed show of about 1300 people which was roughly half the capacity of Massey Hall where they had played on the Clutching At Straws tour. I cannot imagine how the band must have felt at the venue as it was their first show in North America with their new singer after the first EU leg of the tour. The show before this one, however, was their first venture into South America where they played to sea of people on January 26 at the Rock In Rio concert. From that to 1300 must have been a bit of a mindfuck. The Diamond Club was a phenomenal show and the Toronto crowd, which has a reputation of being somewhat reserved in response as a whole, was fully supportive of the new little guy. They put everything into that show and won over the majority of the audience. I say majority as I’m sure there were Fish Fanatics present, standing at the back with arms crossed and furrowed brows, waiting on every opportunity to criticize the fact that he wasn’t their Fishy friend, but whatever. You can’t convince people of anything if they are unwilling to listen with an open mind. It is strangely coincidental that Phil Collins’ first live public concert was in London Ontario just 2 hours east of Toronto in 1976 and Hogarth’s first NA show was in Toronto some 24 years later.
After a spring romp back through the UK they returned to North America and played the now somewhat defunct Kingswood Music Theatre at Canada’s Wonderland just north of Toronto on June 23 1990. The setlist was mostly the same as The Diamond show except we got Freaks the second time around, but not Holloway Girl. Despite smaller venues the tour was a success as it established Steve as a worthy successor in a live forum, bouncing around with lots of energy. He was and still is an incredibly entertaining and engaging front person. I think if their goal was to win a battle every night with a new old crowd, it was a success for the most part.
Production for the new album began, following the Seasons End tour which started on October 5 1989 in France and ended 10 months later at Wembley Arena in London on July 12 1990. The album was successful but not the hit that EMI was hoping for. Christopher Neil was brought in to produce and hopefully inject his more pop leanings into the proceedings as far as the label was concerned, looking for the band to repeat the successes they had with their earlier singles. In addition to new material, the band also worked up a couple of songs that Hogarth had done with his previous band How We Live. The album was again recorded at Hook End Studios in Oxfordshire England and Westside Studios in London, and was released on June 24 1991. The album cover art had a whole new look from any of their previous releases utilizing a blue monochromatic painting by Sarah Ball. Gone as well were the last vestiges of their old identity as the trademark logo last seen on Seasons End, had officially seen its last day on a Marillion studio album. In its place was a standard font for the name and album title in a circle around a moon. Wait a minute….that’s no moon…it’s a space station….Actually I checked again and in fact it’s a moon. The US release of the album had a slightly different cover, using the same imagery but with the band’s name much larger and using the creative from the Cover My Eyes single…with the new MAR-ILL-ION band name set across three lines.
The album peaked at number 7 in the UK charts and similarly in Germany and the Netherlands (forgive me for asking but are there actually multiple “Lands” in the Netherlands that necessitates the use of the word “the”? I truly don’t know but am curious). Like its predecessor it sold squat in North America and was released in February of 1992. The result of the influence of the record company on the band to try to come up with more commercial material as well as having a producer more in the pop than prog lane resulted in probably the most divisive album of the band’s career. Holidays In Eden is WAY more pop oriented, FAR less prog influenced and MUCH more varied than any other album of theirs to date. I think that the very nature of the album led many fans who may have tentatively bought into the new band, hoping for more of the same or even more of the past, basically jumped ship at this point if they hadn’t already. It really is a very different album in many ways than their prior output and one that some fans love and others absolutely hate. For me I try to look at it with two different lenses. My Marillion prog loving lens puts me at around the 50% mark as far as how much I like it. My non Marillion filter is much more forgiving when I look at the material from a non-biased point of view.
Splintering Heart starts things off smashingly with its slow build burbling keyboard/bass intro and subtle vocals. The first two and a half minutes reminds me of something that would fit on Peter Gabriel’s Passion album, until the band come crashing in led by a soloing Rothery squeezing notes out of his guitar like juice from a lemon. This is the longest song on the album at just under 7 minutes in length and it moves through multiple moods, textures and sounds as it ebbs and flows between moody introspection and unrestrained power. I’ve seen the band open live shows a bunch of times with this song and it is probably my favourite tune to begin a Marillion concert. It is also one of my two favourite songs on the album.
OK that is a promising start to the album if ever there was one. Looks like we are in for a dark, moody album. What’s next? Cover My Eyes (Pain and Heaven). Uh Oh, somethings up. I feel like maybe we are back in The Uninvited Guest territory. Not sure how I feel about this. It is a jaunty upbeat number that is clearly aimed at something more mainstream, though still highly melodic and musical and engaging. Cover My Eyes was the lead off single for the album, being released about a month prior to record, and one of the two songs from How We Live – being a rewrite of the song Simon’s Car. It is a more straightforward pop song and it graced the middle of the UK charts. Not the big hit the record company was probably banking on. I do find this song to be a ton of fun when played live as it adds a danceable break to shows that sometimes wander in slower tempos and moody intensity. This song is a nice 4 minute slice of fun. The flipside of the single was a song called How Can It Hurt which is proggy-melodic-medal which is distinctly undanceable with its changing time signatures. I think it goes from 72/34 to 17/12. Whatever it is I can’t count it out. I can barely manage 4/4. It is not too bad but nothing spectacular as well. If you want someone to never get hooked on Marillion play them this one. It should do the trick.
After the upbeat Cover My Eyes comes The Party. OK let me say this. I totally get why people love this song. It has the moody mastery of great Marillion songs, with a story about what seems to be a questionable situation from a teenage party. It has kind of a rapey vibe and lyric, from an observational perspective, but probably more just an observation of being young and drunk. Rothery has another of this career great solos in this song. Here is the problem I have with the song, however. I don’t know if anyone remembers the skit on Saturday Night Live where Dana Carvey is trying to fake his way through a song as a Brill Building type of writer who has no ideas. He sits down at a piano and starts to make up a song and sings about Chopping Broccoli. The Party song sounds exactly like that song and I cannot listen this without Chopping Broccoli taking over. That’s it…that’s my problem with the song. Marillion ripped off a Dana Carvey skit and now I can’t like the song. Sorry if I just ruined it for anyone. Blame my keyboard player Michael Graham cause he was the one that ruined for me. Tag you’re it.
Fourth song in is the second single No One Can. It is quite a pretty love song. Sincere and straightforward lyrically and musically. It is infectiously catchy but it feels a bit light for Marillion. So while I like the song it feels strangely out of place for the band, likely a product of the record company/production push for mainstream success. It did moderately well in the charts so kind of 0 and 2 in the count as far as huge singles success was concerned. There is nothing overtly amazing or offensive about the song in my opinion, but in the right frame of mind I like it quite a bit. The b-side of this single, however is a fantastic song, albeit somewhat stalkerish in nature. The lyrics are Helmers and are based on a guy he knew who used to take a photo of all the girls he dated in the exact same location, unbeknownst to them, and kept a photo album of all the pictures taken. It reads kind of creepy but the song itself is gorgeous, just gentle acoustic guitars, light keys, vocals and some bass. No drums on this one but it is a wonderful song. One of my favourites from this recording session. They should have substituted this for the title track and called the album A Collection.
Alright speaking of the title track. Marillion has a track record of scorchingly awesome title tracks – Script For A Jester’s Tear, Fugazi, The Last Straw (sort of), Seasons End. This is sure to be a kick ass winner. Birds are chirping and an airplane flies by…maybe it will be like Close To The Edge or South Side Of The Sky by Yes…hang on there stud…not so fast…what we got ourselves here is a genuine…well I don’t really know what it is…I mean I start out liking it in the verse that opens the song but then the chorus rears its ugly head and I’m deep smack in the middle of a jungle adventure I never signed up for. I’m not even sure by half way through, if I like any of it, and it doesn’t really get much better for me. In all honesty I’ve actually softened to this song over the years and I don’t find it nearly as offensive as described but if I’m being absolutely truthful it is probably the worst Marillion track to this point in their career, in my opinion. Naming the album after this is unforgivable – they should have called it Splintering Heart to keep the streak alive. I used to run a website for a Burlington Ontario 80s New Wave band called Spoons who had a global semi hit in 1983 with the song Nova Heart. Their second album is called Arias & Symphonies – one of the best Canadian albums ever. They have a song on this record called South American Vacation which tackles a similar theme to the title track, except it is great. Sorry boys, can’t like them all. I love it when it ends.
Dry Land is the second How We Live song on this record and is a pretty straight interpretation of the song. Calm, pretty, and tapping similar safe pop territory as No One Can. I do like Dry Land more however, as Hogarth’s vocals are much more emotive in execution. Technically speaking this is actually Marillion doing a cover of a How We Live song which makes it unique amongst their catalog. The tying thread being that Hogarth was one of the songwriters but for all intents and purposes it is a cover. It’s a nice song that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome but it also doesn’t add a great deal to the big picture of the band…or maybe by its very nature it does, actually. It was the third single from the album and did about the same in the UK charts as the other two singles – all peaking in the mid thirties range.
From here on out the album returns to more familiar Marillion territory starting with Waiting To Happen. I love when Rothery plays acoustic guitar on Marillion songs. This is a lovely song that is gentle and forlorn in the verses and explosive and powerful in the choruses, with a beautiful lyric as well. Its only drawback is that it is a bit repetitive in structure. Lovely guitar solo by Rothers on this one as well with a sweet tone. The song doesn’t stray far from where it starts but it is one of the better songs on the album for me.
Finally we end up at the “This Town Trilogy” as it has come to be known. Like Hotel Hobbies/Warm Wet Circles/That Time Of The Night from Clutching At Straws, but not quite as good and unlike the former trio, this group can’t and shouldn’t be separated, as all of them sound neutered in isolation. That being said it is a very good trio of songs. After Splintering Heart it is probably the most prog like song/s on the album. Actually truth be told, the first song of the trilogy is more of an upbeat rock song. Similar to Holidays In Eden in tempo and power but vastly more successful in every way. Confident, rocking, great back up vocals that tap into Beach Boys territory with excellent lyrics and a spiraling guitar solo at the end that leads into the short connecting song The Rake’s Progress. Pete Trawavas’s pulsing bass underscores some atmospheric guitar work as the song slides into the last song on the album 100 Nights, which is an absolute powerhouse and serves to bookend the album with greatness. It is the other truly awesome, epic song on the record and the second longest. Mid-tempo intensity with a lyric that takes a first person perspective of being the other guy in a relationship. Half way through it lands on a screaming, blistering guitar solo that just shreds the shit out of the song as Hogarth’s vocals become more desperate leading up to the line “But while you’re out there playing you see, There’s something you should know. She spends your money, She spends your money on me” before the song spirals back to a slowed down chorus from the song This Town which started this triple threat. It is a fantastic ending to a very hit and miss album for many people. If anything, however, like its predecessor The Space… on Season’s End, musically it leaves us carrying a message of hope….for the future.
When this album was released I really didn’t like it much at all, at least not enough to convince me that the band were heading in a direction that other bands I loved were doing much better or differently. In 1992 I was getting into Teenage Fanclub and Brit Pop and was listening to Jellyfish and World Party. My musical palate was changing and despite the band doing the same, we weren’t aligned that well at that point and I lost touch with them for a little while. It was a trial separation but it didn’t last, and it was actually more a passive than an active decision which probably had to do with the band and tours and Record companies and marketing. In the end Holidays In Eden, despite liking it much more now than I did then, is still probably my least favourite Hogarth Era release. Sorry boys every hit isn’t a home run. This one is a bit of a fielder’s choice for fans.
Recommended Listening: Splintering Heart, The Party (if you like songs that remind you of Chopping Broccoli), Dry Land, Waiting To Happen, This Town/The Rake’s Progress/100 Nights, A Collection.
