Originally published in Music News.Com. September 15th 2012.

For the multitude of thousands, if not millions, of fans that Marillion can count upon to fill every venue in every continent that they visit on tour, Marillion seem to remain one of the best kept secrets in music and to be honest they deserve to be lauded by all but not if it means they lose that very special and utterly unique relationship they have with their fans.
The Corporation in Sheffield was the latest venue in which the five musicians embarked upon and took by storm. It might not go down as the best ever gig ever witnessed by the 800 souls who crowded into every pore and cranny available to them. However, that didn’t seem to faze them, for fans of Marillion it’s not always about it being the best ever gig, it is more the communal aspect, the chance to watch perhaps the most emotionally filling band to have come from these shores in the last 30 years.
The Marillion family had gathered in their droves from the far flung places of the map, as is their want, to take in the delights of a city that in recent weeks has been very much in the news, both the great with the likes of local living legend Jessica Ennis at the forefront of the Olympic Games but also the very sad and nationally shaming report on the tumultuous events of April 1989.
Music has the ability to heal many wounds and whilst some grievous miscarriages of justice are allowed to fester for many years and music may struggle to ever really honour the victims of that stain on the national conscious, it was perhaps the right day to remember them and every wronged victim with some decent and brilliant music.
After three years of waiting for a new album by the band, the fans were treated to small selection of songs from Songs That Can’t Be Made and judging by the reaction by the crowd assembled it looks as if the band have once more delivered with style. The band opened up with Gaza from the new album and followed it up with the excellent and ethereal You’re Gone, the spine tingling Neverland, both from 2004’s best-selling album, Marbles and the heart breaking Fantastic Place.
There were a couple of other songs from the new album played on the night and enjoyed by the assembled audience, even those with an axe to grind against one of the new songs on the album, were left spellbound by the new tunes. The band played the title track, Sounds That Can’t Be Made and Power.
The night was bought to a superb end by Mark Kelly, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas, Ian Mosley and Steve Hogarth playing The Great Escape from Brave and two excellent encores of A Few Words For The Dead and the much loved Sugar Mice. These wonderful nods to the past were as always enjoyed by locals and those that had made the long trip to Sheffield.

Ian D. Hall