Fish live at Islington Assembly Hall, London on April 29th, 2016

Words by: Robert Sutton

Images by: Robert Sutton Photography

www.facebook.com/robertsuttonphotography

Billed as the ‘Farewell to Childhood’ tour to mark the 30^th anniversary of the release of the Marillion album ‘Misplaced Childhood’ and Fish played to a sold out show at the Islington Assembly Hall in London.. Sound familiar? Well this was another ‘Farewell to Childhood’ performance at the same venue that he had performed at on two sold out nights last December… where he sung the entire album for the last time ( again!..). There was no support act this time though.

Fish: As Fish came onto stage to the applause of the audience he always seems to get greeted by someone shouting ‘Play Grendel’, which to my knowledge, he has only ever played four times…and tonight was not going to be his fifth.. He put that comment to one side and the band started tonight’s performance with ‘Pipeline’ from Fish’s 1994 ‘Suits’ album. This was followed by ‘Long Cold Day’ and then ‘A Feast of Consequences’ from his latest album of the same name. ‘Family Business’ and then ‘Perception of Johnny Punter’ from the 1997 ’Sunsets on Empire’ album then followed on.

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It was then time to move onto the album ‘Misplaced Childhood’ starting with ‘Pseudo Silk Kimono’ .Next up was, of course, the classic ‘Kayleigh’, followed by the other classic from the album ‘Lavender’. ‘Bitter Suite’ and ‘Heart of Lothian’ were next on the running order, and finally finishing up with ‘White Feather’ which marked the end of the album and the end of the set and the band said their farewells and left the stage.

The night was clearly not over and it wasn’t long before the band returned to the stage to great applause from the audience where they played the first encore of ‘Market Square Heroes’ from Marillion’s debut single in 1982. Again another crowd pleaser with the audience just about out singing Fish on this song…

The band left the stage again, but were back again swiftly for the second and final encore of the night with the drinking song ‘The Company’. This ended the evening’s performance.

He did have his usual ‘stories’ to tell throughout the evening, with the biggest and most hard hitting one about why we should not give in or change our ways to the threat from terrorists in today’s world. At the end of which he did get a huge applause from the audience.

Once again I have to say it was an excellent nights performance.

This was the last of ‘Farewell to Childhood’ and the last shows until at least April next year ,according to Fish, where he then intends to tour with the new ‘Weltschmerz’ album, which is to be written between May this year and April next and also linked in with the 30th Anniversary of, and final performances of, the ‘Clutching at Straws’ album.

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