Wednesday 1st March 2006 - Steve Hogarth – Liverpool

Wednesday 1^st March 2006 - Steve Hogarth – Liverpool

The Prelude

Since h first talked about the concept of this tour sat on the table at the after-show in Aylesbury back on tour last year I had been excited about it. I had been slightly disappointed by the Gerona gig, it had been lovely to hear Steve of course but the atmosphere had been wrong, and so for me this was the first proper ‘h natural’ gig that could be true to what Steve had originally set out to do.

I first heard about this particular potential venue off my old chum Judith back on the ‘Not Quite Christmas’ Marillion tour at the end of last year. She had raved that it was going to be amazing and insisted she’d buy me tickets, for which I was grateful as I’m notoriously bad and disorganised at doing that!

It has to be said that the long emotional days of being on tour with Neal Casal combined with flying to Gerona and a course of IV’s that hadn’t done much besides make me feel poisoned were catching up with me, tired girlie. Then of course rather than being sensible and sleeping at the weekend I had gone role-playing in Manchester with Bryan, which was something of an emotional upheaval as it was the first time we’d really attempted the whole ‘being friends’ thing since we broke up, and it hadn’t

gone too well. Followed of course by the mad crazy dash up to Nick’s late on the Monday night for the christening which was erm, memorable… OW my arm, you bitch!

1^st March 2006

Predictably there was the usual disorganised Crossland scuffle over whether we were going, and when we were going to leave, and who was having the 4^th ticket (It had originally been bought for Bryan, clearly not appropriate now)

Eventually we were bundled in the car and heading North, I did the sensible thing and put Snow Patrol up loud (ooo you can tell I was having a ‘Bryan’ moment) and slept most of the journey.

I awoke to squabbling over the SatNav as per usual as we circled round the streets of Liverpool trying to find the venue. It was tucked away down a pedestrianised section which explains why Mavis got in a pickle. Then the hunt for a spaz-badge space (hehe so un-PC) we finally found one and parked. (Does it show that at this point I was tired and crabby and not hugely excited about things?)

Daddy had spotted a guitar shop and was off before the engine had barely cooled! Mummy and I did the ever glamorous changing in the car routine. I originally had decided to be boring and just wear my pretty red velvet top with sensible warm jeans, but then decided that actually I wanted to be girlie and so pilfered one of Mummy’s gorgeous hippy skirts that happened to be in the car. God Daddy is right that woman does leave clothes piled everywhere! Though it turns out that it is actually frightfully convenient every once in a while.

Then for some reason they were just faffing and Daddy was taking ages to come back from wherever it was he’d wandered off too, so I decided to walk down to the venue on my own and they could catch me up.

Ok so now I’m in Liverpool, liver birds high above me, the Mersey running in its banks just over the way. Big buildings, architecture dripping with the money of the old high points of the industrial revolution, faded down in the way that everything in the North is. But this is the city of culture now, new money and urban regeneration have left a sparkling shimmer, all lights and glass and metal.

I found it a little forced, in that way that regeneration always is. You can just hear the track of the council meeting ‘we want to make the city trendy, give it a bit of a re-vamp, what’s trendy these days? Glass and metal, ok we will shove that everywhere and pedestrianise a few bits and it will be sorted.’ There is no natural progression or care given. It is just a ‘programme’ just a whimsical short lived ‘initiative’ that does nothing to alleviate the social inequalities that led to degradation in the first place.

The chavs are still being loud and aggressive and drunk here, just because the street they vomit on has pretty glass lights set in it, there is in-fact no real change. But I applaud the attempt; I hope it will kick start something ‘true’. Liverpool is an old city; she has a history and a soul that was built long before Thatcher enacted the programme which set out to destroy our industrial heritage. I’m sure given time and money and hope Liverpool and her warm hearted people will find their way again.

Social commentary and scepticism is something I do in my head, you have to forgive me; the humanities student in me can’t help it. ‘Geography is everywhere’ so are Sociology and Philosophy it would seem. Don’t know where all the sparkly fluff comes from though!

So this street, the Beatles walked down here once. Young lads carrying their guitar cases to a crummy half filled gig where they were third on the showcase and no one thought they’d ever be anything. It’s odd there is a statue of one of them in the street, it only added to the musings in my head. Then one of the vomiting chavs decided it would be funny to pretend to hump it. I found that decidedly disrespectful. The Beatles, like Joan of Arc are iconic historical figures. Whether you like their music or not, and whether you even know it or not is irrelevant. They have become more important than that for the revolutions they were inadvertently part of.

The Beatles were just a band, like any other, playing gigs and writing songs. They just happened to be very good at it, and to be in the right places at the right times. They did not cause the revolution, that was part of a much wider social movement, but they were important, and through the way the history has been written have become the immense icon of music that they are.

I found it interesting that I should be here and see this place now. I personally believe in fifty or one-hundred years time people will look back on this point in history that we are forming right now, and see it as a point where things in the world really changed.

There are clearly big political machinations afoot, what with the glamorous American super power marching round the world on its unstable footings. The industrial revolutions that are happening in countries like Brazil and India, and then of course there is China, which everyone forgets, but that tiger is stirring and very soon I feel there will be some massive clash that re-shapes the world as we know it. Much as I will gladly join in the fashionable bitching over oil I can see there are much bigger and more fundamental motions going on under the glitzy aggressive political surfaces of the media.

There is also, on a slightly lighter and more relevant note big shifts in the music industry. The i-pod, the new icon to replace The Beatles is well and truly among us. Again not the cause of the revolution, just the symbol of it. The huge backlash against manufactured empty pop and the rise of the small individual band through websites like my-space is happening. People are not putting up with the same three songs played in a circle on the radios, they are turning to bands who are capable of writing whole albums that are worth buying and listening to over and again on the much loved and much transported MP3 device. Music is becoming democratic again, returned to the people, hurrah!!

Back to here and now… wow The Beatles stood here, probably wandered over this very spot, that’s pretty cool! I’d just texted Iain to tell him where I was so he could meet me and we could sort out tickets.

Iain is Judith’s fiancée they are due to get married later this year. I don’t think I know any other couples who have made each other as happy as those two make each other, it is a constant source of joy to me to watch two such special and kind people so in love.

Judith has looked after me in the front rows of Marillion gigs since I was a little girl. She is incredibly warm hearted and loving. A very precious friend indeed. Being on tour would just not be the same without her.

Her young man Iain arrived on the scene a few years ago, and since I first met him, I took him into my heart, he is something quite special. I think its one of those situations where he was already fond of me just from what he’d heard about me, and I was already fond of him because he made my darling Judith so happy, our friendship has pretty much gone from there. We also have a lot of common, our attitude is very similar. Iain is quite badly disabled and in a wheelchair, I don’t know exactly what is wrong with him, but I know it involves the discs in his spine slowly crushing together, which sounds incredibly painful and horrific. And yet just like me you’d think he was totally fine, he shoves it all away and just gets the hell on with it! If he’s not chasing bands about the world he’s continuing his monumental pilgrimage round the football clubs of the country- most definitely my kind of dude!

There he was sat outside the venue, huge grin on his face, as ever, YAY! Big cuddles and kisses and my typical stroking of his cute fuzzy hair hehe, well after I’d stolen his very funky hat for myself of course hehe!

Then my dad wandered out of the venue, apparently he’d been sorting out the alternative route for Iain into the venue. Turns out the name Cavern Club is linked to the fact it’s miles (pretend exaggerated miles) underground. This is fine and beautifully atmospheric but not hugely wheelchair accessible by the normal route. It was all fine and sorted though and we could just go round the back before doors opened and they would let us in by the entrance with a lift.

My mum and Judith then arrived from separate directions, and we tried to arrange food as we hadn’t eaten. They said there was a nice pub round the corner and we could go there, so we did. Iain, Judith and I went off ahead for some reason, (I think Mummy and Daddy were going in search of a cash machine) and we managed to commandeer a table in the corner of the pub. It was a very trendy place, there was all this copper and slate on the walls at strange angles, it did make the corner we were sat in feel like it was on a slant which was quite bizarre.

We spent some time catching up, which largely involved me explaining the demise of my marriage. (I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to the idea of that. The fact I was ever married seems surreal, the fact it broke just makes it harder) Judith has seen the whole affair from start to finish.

From the .com tour when I was fourteen and first met and fell in love with Bryan, through the Anoraknophobia tour where him and I were inseparable. She was there when we got married, and was part of the awesome-ness and love that that moment was. Then through to the Marbles tour where Bryan refused to come because he wanted to play EQ. Then finally the ‘Not Quite Christmas Tour’ the last ditch failed rescue attempt, and the fitting poetic end.

They were both so upset for me; and for Bryan because they care about us both. Still glowing from the light and healing that I had found in the mountains of Gerona I was able to give a good and fair description of events and all the why’s and wherefore’s. Of course embittered about how alone Bryan made me feel, but at the same time admitting my own flaws and unquenchable desire to wander. Still not used to it though, not by a long way.

Then Mummy and Daddy arrived, bought us all a round of drinks and we all continued chatting. Along with fighting against the constant traffic of people who insisted on leaving the door open! Eek far too cold for that!

We were talking about the Neal Casal tour and insisting that next time he played in the UK they would have to come along. Cheekily I whispered ‘better singer than h’ oooo blaspheme! Blaspheme! And not entirely true, perhaps more consistent would be more fair. Eeek can I honestly believe I would ever say such a thing hehe! Oh I love them both equally; they are as gorgeous as each other. But then h…mmm big sigh…I do love him lots!

We were telling them about our embarrassing set-list thiefage incident (see the Neal Casal tour diaries for details!) and then of course about my birthday. Would that have been my 21^st BIRTHDAY Mummy?...Sorry Toria did you say your 21^st BIRTHDAY?...hehe never going to tire of that! This brought us round to my iconic little i-pod.

Judith being a Marillion fan, and having known me as long as she has would understand the entire significance of the inscription on the back. I dug it out of my bag and handed it over. Her eyes scanned across the letters (which I will write for you here just in case you haven’t read the Neal Casal tour diary!)

‘Our Brave Brave Girl- VJ

Happy 21^st- Mummy & Daddy’

We all just watched as her eyes filled with tears, while my Daddy brokenly tried to explain how there hadn’t been enough words to say it all. She went to hand it back to me whilst telling Iain he wasn’t allowed to read it because it would make him cry. Iain of course promptly took it off of her and as predicted welled up, which of course set the rest of them off! So there I was sat there in the middle of this pub with all four of them crying their eyes out over the back of my i-pod, bless them, it was very cute really. Love.

We then realised we still hadn’t eaten, and I was starving. Though of course now there wasn’t really time for food now, Iain offered to take me round the corner to get some chips from Burger King and we were just about to head off when Daddy came back from the bar with tales of cake! Cake sounded better than fast-food chips, so I minced over and sure enough there was Victoria sponge with jam and cream and mmm! So I had that yay!

Then it was time to go to the gig so off we wandered to the Cavern clubs lift entrance, which felt oddly like it was in the bottom of an office block, it then gets more weird when it takes you down to an underground car-park where there is a side door into the venue.

Wow I’m in The Cavern Club wow wow wow The Beatles played here!

The same guys that tend to help out at Marillion gigs were around and sorting out the last few things before the masses were let in. I know I’ve known these guys for years but I see them so rarely and so fleetingly that rather embarrassingly I can never remember all their names, oh well cuddles all round anyway!

Then Iain and I went in search of Steve as we had to give him a wedding invitation. One of the staff at the venue took it for us which was sweet of them. I then went to the loo and spent ages in there reading all the things people have written there on the walls. I don’t know why but I find it really -moving and artistic to see all those old memories written down. Thinking of all the excited girls who must have written them over the years. All the gorgeous girls back in the 60’s with their cute hair cuts and printed dresses that did their make-up in these loos and scribbled names of boys who are men with grown up children by now. All excited about the band they had just seen, ‘That boy playing the drums George was is? He was cute’ then her girlfriend ‘Oh no that singer John wow he was beautiful’ hehe! Aww wandering about a place where history was written is an amazing thing.

Then back out to the front of the venue. There was a little bit of hassle because the staff wanted Iain to sit far away from the front on a raised bit, but that would have been rubbish and he wouldn’t have been able to see. They kept saying it was a health and safety issue, while we tried to explain that this wasn’t a death metal concert and there wasn’t going to be any moshing and he would be perfectly safe where he was.

I think it’s very hard for normal people, they just see a wheelchair and their brain automatically thinks helpless and immobile. They have no concept of how the world works from that position, what is and isn’t a danger, how and where you can see from, all these sorts of things. They don’t actually realise that for someone like Iain being in a wheelchair is no different to walking. For instance earlier at the pub when we kept having to shut the door, he would nip over and close it just the same as one of us who could walk over to it.

Eventually the staff were satisfied that he wasn’t posing a fire risk, and was perfectly fine and we could manage ourselves just as well as all the normal people and they left us to it! We chatted and gradually watched the room fill up, saying hello to old chums, and generally revelling in the pre-gig atmosphere. It has to be said though I did keep squeaking ‘The Beatles played here’ at myself in my head, I couldn’t believe it!

Just the thought of the boys with their gear crammed and messy on the stage, all trailing wires, and all their songs that have become so intrinsic to the nations soundtrack being played here for the first time, all rough and still half formed. I wouldn’t even say I’m a fan of Beatles stuff, and I honestly don’t know that much of it, it’s just one of those things that is so unbelievably cool you have to be excited about it!

Then a sudden hush followed by cheering and the gorgeous Mr h flounced onto the stage, grinning mischievously and holding his atrocious skunk fur coat (named Tiddles) around himself. It’s funny how well I know that mannerism of his. He has a bit of a thing about long coats and often wears them on stage. He quite often holds it round himself in that exact way, and it’s usually when he’s singing the more painful songs off of Brave. It is hard to convey in words a pose, people that love him like I do will know what I mean though. I do love it when he grins like that! Yay, my beautiful h!

His coat caused a bit of a stir, which is undoubtedly why he wore it, glamorous little show off! Everyone was very relaxed and joking, you just knew it was going to be an amazing gig, you just knew!

He thanked us all for coming and for paying, made a joke about Aziz having not paid, and that he would get him up to tell a joke later. Aziz plays guitar with Steve when he does his solo work, and is quite awesome at it, also a rather nice chap of whom I’m rather fond!

H explained that he was here doing these shows to pay off a rather large tax bill, and that Lucy (Marillion’s manager type thing) had suggested he do this solo tour. He admitted he would have never done it otherwise because it was too ‘fucking scary’ aww! However he’d done a few shows now and so was settling into it, no less terrified, just more wrapped up and lost in the whole ‘general hysteria’ of it and that it had now taken on a rather ‘surreal quality’! Giggling and warm laughs from crowd to that of course.

He said he’d got over the loneliness now too which had taken a while, he missed having the rest of the boys around him, mostly because now he had no one to give dirty looks at and blame when stuff went wrong, a Steve Rothery trick that! More giggles from the crowd! He told us all we’d have to look out for it at the next Marillion gig, and did a very amusing and accurate impression of the exact face Rothers pulls at the band when he hits a duffer, saying he’d usually do it at Pete because he’s the only one that would stand for it! Aww if you ever doubted that being part of Marillion was a big warm family love affair then this night was going to suck you in! Home among the magical love, Yay!

Then a beautiful distracted fluffy Steve moment as he tried to work out what to do next with a bit of musing over what songs he might sing. Some heckling from the audience over how the band hadn’t played Liverpool for ages, for which Steve apologised, before smugly wiggling his finger and proudly saying ‘well I’m here’ all emphasis on the ‘I’ which he told us all to remember!

Then from the crowd another person, this time a girl called out ‘take it off’ clearly in reference to the superbly disgusting coat! To which he cheekily responded he would take it off, before having a look in the direction of the voice and asking ‘oo what are you wearing?’ implying she should do likewise hehe tart!

Apparently this wasn’t about a performance, clearly with his very quiet sensible coat, no performance at all! And actually it was about him being in a room with all of us, and just singing and the money hehe all about the money really! Cheeky bugger! Some jokes about the taxman, before a Liverpuddlian proudly announced that they’d killed them all…gig’s in cash then?!

He said how he wanted to talk and be a bit self indulgent over these gigs, a bit of banter about him telling us about his sex life, and to go over how he grew up and how he’s come to be here in the ‘universal sense’ to give us some insight into him and where the songs have come from. Though he jokingly admitted some of the hardcore fans probably knew more about him than he did.

‘Aw Steve do remember…you had these green trousers on…’ ‘No I never had any green trousers’…’Yeah back in 87’ in Paris, they were bright green’…’No really, never had any green trousers’…’Yeah you did here’s a photo’…’Oh, oh you’re right I did have green trousers’

Aww bless the crazy obsessive fans!

So the plotted history of Steve Hogarth which I sprinkled in my head with the appropriate lines from ‘This Strange Engine’ a song that tells the tale in itself….

He grew up in the Lake District near Kendal in the 50’s (getting old!) His dad was in the merchant navy when he was born, and his mother was taken to a maternity unit run by nuns.

‘Born in the hands of a holy woman, in a holy place’

His father came back from sea to see his wife, and his new born son. And apparently always said that the nun that presented Steve to him that first time was the most beautiful woman he ever saw. Though I think the poignancy of the moment was lost as we were all giggling over the word ‘nun’ which h admitted was something that had happened every night so far, and that there was just something funny about nuns! He then got distracted into saying that whenever he went over a speed bump he always imagines it is a nun, not that he has a anything against nuns, he just oddly finds the idea of running them over amusing!

His dad then had to go back to the navy and him and his mother went to live with his grandmother. Now his grandmother was something of a character as she used to dress as a man so she could go to the pub! Hehe olden days where women didn’t go to pubs- shocking stuff!

Apparently when his mother used to be at work his grandmother used to look after him and feed him his tea, which consisted of egg and chips and ambrosia creamed rice, some side discussion as to whether you could still get that, then on with the tale. Apparently she used to give it to him, and give him a cheeky look at him and say ‘that will put some lead in you pencil’ he was only eight at the time so not to surprisingly he would just look blankly back at her so craftily she would say ‘if you’ve got anyone to write to’. He just used to think she was mad, then years later one day at school it suddenly hit him what the hell she’d been on about, and he kind did this mime of himself realising and throwing his pencils and books on the floor in shock and horror whilst exclaiming ‘Jesus Christ that old bitch was being obscene!’. Needless to say we were all laughing hysterically at this, while I thought to myself that suddenly everything was becoming so clear hehe such a tart!

Her husband, his grandfather was something of a scoundrel, who after inheriting a lot of money skipped off for years, and didn’t come back until he’d spent it all! More jokes about the taxman, who didn’t get to see any of this fortune! Then apparently when he finally returned his dear crazy grandma took him back.

The bulldog, should he talk about the bulldog? Big cheers in agreement, we all wanted to know where the line had come from.

‘He wore a red coat and walked a bulldog, saw them reflected in the mirror of the lake’

We actually have a photo of that in our kitchen. This tiny little version of Steve with blonde hair and blue eyes, in his red coat and blue shoes. We got it off his mum years ago when my parents ran the web, back when ‘This Strange Engine’ first came out, we coloured in the black and white photo and it was the cover of that fan-club magazine issue.

So this bulldog was called Peter and was apparently well behaved, and despite being five times Steve’s size never once pulled him over. However this dog had a crazy obsession with oranges, and the second anyone in the small northern village of Kendal dared open an orange this crazy dog would run and try and steal it and nothing like people, parked cars or walls wouldn’t come between it and the potential orange!

At the time his grandparents owned the village paper shop, so h effectively got to grow up in a sweetshop, which seems oddly fitting to his pretty little soul. And he would walk this bulldog and then come home and play with his favourite toy, which happened to be a coffee percolator! One has to admit they are rather funky things to play with!

And he didn’t have a teddy bear like normal children but instead had this toilet bag that he would carry around with him everywhere. You have to love this weird airy fairy arty types don’t you?!

Then apparently one day they went for a walk in the park and Steve threw his bag over these railings, then immediately wanted it back. His dad who was home that day, knelt down and tried to reach through to get it. Peter decided this was a fun game and leapt on Steve’s dad with enough force to shove his head through the railings. They then had to call the fire brigade to cut him free. Somewhat wistfully and with an apologetic sarcastic edge he exclaimed ‘… and these are my earliest memories’ aww really does explain it all!

Again another plea for him to take his coat off, to which he replied ‘if you take off your dress I’ll take off my coat!’ something in me doubts that’s the first time he’s said something like that hehe!

On with the story…

He explained that his dad then came back from the navy and opted to work in the mines instead for national service. He moved his wife and son to Doncaster where he originally came from so that he could work there.

‘From the horizon, came home from the navy to the mine, from the horizon to buried alive’

He then digressed a little as he explained in a beautifully accepting and matter of fact way that his mother had been one of twins, however her twin brother had died at birth, so of course stayed and lived as a spirit with his sister. Though he pointed out that this wasn’t really that exotic, it just meant the house was haunted and that stuff used to move around from time to time. But being a child and the way they are he thought this was all rather normal. Bless.

He then went back to talking about his father and how he used to sit him on his knee and tell him all these stories about his adventures, and how Steve had come to realise, much later once he became a dad what an enormous sacrifice it had been for his father to give up his life of sailing around Montego Bay with is flying fish, and watching slaves sing as they loaded bananas onto boats, to come back from all of the magic to work down a mine in the small dirty northern town of Doncaster.

‘Oh mummy daddy will you sit a while with me, oh mummy daddy will you help jog my memory, tell me, tall tales of Montego Bay, Table Mountain and flying fish, banana spiders, pots of paint... and just south of the equator, sitting like an ember thrown to deep water, from crimson to black, he’s coming back tomorrow’

That is probably one of the most evocative and beautiful parts of ‘This Strange Engine’ (TSE) and has long been a quote in my head. When I was a young teenager and the painful fractures in my family were amongst their worst I used to sing that line over and again curled up crying at the end of my bed like a prayer.

The TSE album came out around the time my grandmother was dying. The sound of the lakes and the north that are woven into it ‘in the shadow of a mountain’ very much wrapped around me travelling to Owestry in the north Welsh borders and watching her leave this world.

The TSE tour of which I did quite a lot has always been a memory of mine. The night they played Cardiff and Steve’s parents were in the audience was the most beautiful. When Steve sang This Strange Engine I could tell he was singing it to his daddy, as an apology, to convey understanding, and as a tribute and as a thank you for everything his father had been to him. I remember crying so much years later when Steve’s dad died, partly because he was a lovely man of whom I was very fond, but more because that night in Cardiff had shown me how much Steve loved him, and it upset me deeply to think how much my beautiful h must be hurting.

I remember being sat upstairs on a table at the after-show of the Cardiff gig (something of a reoccurring theme, it’s like there are no chairs in the mysterious vacuous space of backstage!) Mark Kelly (the keyboard player from Marillion) was doing magic tricks for the little kids with a coin. My brother and Steve’s son Nile had both watched spellbound, until Pete (the bass player) had come in and leaned on my brothers’ head like he was some sort of post! It’s funny to think of both boys now, Nile all grown up into this sexy moody teenager with gorgeous long hair like his dad, and Alex equally grown up and playing Gibson’s with panache probably now tall enough that he could probably lean on Pete’s head!

It is odd to think that a song someone wrote about their life could get so woven into the history of someone else’s. Like I always say, Marillion are the soundtrack to the last 12/13 years of my life, it is nights like this when I realise that to say that is no exaggeration. I find that oddly beautiful.

Continuing…

Steve used to be excited by all these dreams and magical places his father put in his head and became determined to leave Doncaster. He wasn’t hugely happy there as he didn’t fit in terribly well. All these rough hard northern miners didn’t, funnily enough, take to well to the airy fairy young Mr Hogarth dancing about wearing pink (hehe clearly no changes there then!) things didn’t improve when he took to wearing a bathrobe and yellow clogs either (tolerant as I am of my gorgeous boy’s unique taste in clothes even I have to say I’m glad he’s moved beyond that phase!) He used to get beaten up and picked on a lot, to the point on Saturday nights at closing time; there was often something of a fight over who got to beat him up. This seemed very funny the way Steve told it, but it actually must have been hard. His sparkly little soul was clearly just too special for those horrid louts to appreciate!

Oooo off with the coat…imitation skunk! OOO liar!! Lots of woots from the laydees!

He then got into a band, which got this gig with an old rocker named Vince Eager, who used to do… ‘A tribute to Elvis Presley’ which h said in a very mock Elvis voice clearly impersonating this Vince chap hehe!

He was going to be singing on this cruise liner, and Steve’s band were told if they would be the backing band for ‘a tribute to Elvis Presley ladies and gentlemen’ then beforehand they could also play some of their own stuff. So young Steve his head all full of dreams of the sea thought this sounded like a rather great idea, so off they all sailed on this boat around the North Sea.

Sadly on the third day into this voyage their bass player turned out to be a psychopath (lots of references to Pete and ‘nothing changing there then’ from the audience) they had suspected this a little already but not fully appreciated up to this point quite how insane this boy was!

After a whole day of drinking castle elephant beer this bass player was rather incapable of playing his guitar, yet there they were trying to muddle along. The drummer was quite annoyed with the bass player and getting frustrated, so as they played shouted across to Steve, quite simply ‘what a wanker!’ (In reference to the bass player clearly!) At which point the bass player went completely nuts and decided to try and kill the drummer.

All chaos broke loose and equipment went flying everywhere, while the much bemused cruise passengers looked on! Vince Eager ‘a tribute to Elvis’ marched onto the stage, and grabbed hold of the psychopathic bass player and hauled him off! Apparently this bass player was rather short, and h made a crack about not trusting little guys, especially if they play bass, hehe just like Pete hehe!

The rest of the band retreated to Steve’s tiny cabin in the depths of the ship, while Vince marched the crazy bass player round the cold deck to try and get him to calm down.

(I was listening to this with rapt attention, I’ve known for a long time this whole incident occurred, but this was the first time I’d heard the whole story!)

After some time the bass player came down to the cabin. Steve didn’t want to let him in, but the guitarist insisted he had probably clamed down and had probably come to apologise. So they let him in and rather than apologising this insane bass player walked in the door with a beer glass which he promptly smashed against the wall and then proceeded to threaten to kill the drummer very seriously. He then leapt across the cabin brandishing this smashed glass and tried to shove it into the drummers face. There was a crazy scuffle where eventually Steve and the guitarist managed to drag this bass player out of the cabin, however in the chaos Steve was cut horrifically down the length of is hand.

So Steve was left running round this ship at two in the morning with his hand slit wide open, bleeding to death, trying to find someone who could do something to help him. He eventually found one of the crew who took him up to the deck of the ship. So Steve was sat there looking out over the open black of the sea with all the lights and controls of the deck in-front of him basically dying.

The crew tried to help, and kept bringing him towels to wrap around his hand, but he was bleeding so much they just kept soaking through. Apologetically they told him there wasn’t a doctor on board, and they didn’t know what else they could do.

So there was young Steve Hogarth on this ship just a young man, contemplating dying. Funny I can relate to that quite well. He was very clam, and musing over the symmetry of the moment what with his father having been in the navy, it was all very serene and surreal.

(Between Sheffield and Oslo I heard the other part of the story where a few of the sailors came and managed to sow him up well enough to keep him alive until they got to a port and a doctor a few days later.)

So next time you listen to This Strange Engine you can appreciate that every single bit of it is true. He decided that, that was enough talking for now…But then someone asked about the line about the bees.

‘One day as the boy lay sleeping in the sunshine on a half remembered afternoon, a cloud of bees with no particular aim and no brain decided that his time had come. Came down out the sky, stung him in the face, again and again, blue pain’

So he explained how he’d been very young and out in the pram with his mother, and this cloud of bees that had been stirred up by boys throwing rocks in their hive, swarmed on him. They had staggered into the house of this big black woman called auntie Tottie, who proceed to pull these bees out of Steve and his mothers’ hair and off of their bodies, despite them stinging her fingers as she did so.

He said they used to have this stuff called ‘dolly blue’, to which there was a knowing humm from the older members of the audience, which was like a medicated rag. Steve has this memory of this woman dabbing all these bee stings on his face with this blue thing, and so in his mind he remembers the pain as being blue.

It’s weird, I’d never know that. For so many years I’ve taken to referring to the most painful things I’ve been through as blue. The way he screams the line in the song has been something I’ve done in my head as I’ve lived through frantic hazy moments of being rushed in ambulances with chest pains and obstructed intestines and various other nasty things I was convinced were going to kill me at the time.

‘Blue pain! It’s happening again! It’s happening again!’

I have cried that in my head over and over and far too often, so it is oddly nice to know the full history of that line before it wove its way into me and my way of perceiving the world.

We then got told not to ask any more questions or he would just carry on talking! Some gentle humming from Steve before he casually pronounced ‘I should start with this one’ and promptly broke into the song he had to play really…’Imagine’

I have never liked this song, it’s always irritated me immensely and I never understand why it is always voted the most amazing song ever. But there, that night, in that place of all places I suddenly got it! Wow! To think this was played here by the actual Beatles. Wow! My beautiful Steve Hogarth singing it, just amazing, he’s definitely a better singer than Lennon! Hearing him sing live again, I always forget just how unbelievably stunning he is, predictable sting of tears shinning in my eyes.

Gentle fluting on the piano, before striding into the ever moving ‘Help!' This felt so true to me in my head, I was such a mess at this point, still agonising over being home, and dealing with how ill I’ve become since I left home six years ago, getting over Bryan and the shock of suddenly not having a marriage and the life I had come to expect. So so fitting.

Then swinging into ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ everyone singing along passionately, gorgeous break down into a jazzy bit, and lots of very Steve-Esq. ooing!! Argh he’s SO good!

Gentle fall down into ‘Yesterday’, giggles from the crowd as he paused slightly finding the notes. I just did my typical staring at him in awe, how does he sing the inside of me like this? And these songs, it makes you realise just how genius The Beatles were, that they could write such simple lyrics that would be so eternally relevant. Maybe more justified in their iconic status than I have ever given them credit for. Like all the best music clearly made to be played and heard live it just brings it to, well, life.

Continuing the gentle tone he began singing the hymn like ‘Easter’ a slow version, with new workings of piano notes delicately punctuating the haunting and beautiful lyrics.

The second verse begins ‘Out of the port of Liverpool, bound for the North of Ireland’ I had expected the crowd to sing this bit passionately, what with being in Liverpool, but they had obviously all been so lost in the music led up to it that they faltered before singing the line, which prompted lots of warm laughter at the hopelessness of ourselves! It was also sung incredibly badly and after the beauty and perfection of Steve we were painfully flat and off key!

There was a slight falter as everyone expected h to take over singing again, as we clearly could not be trusted not to massacre the song, but in the spirit of it he let us carry on. I love it when we get to sing Easter! No matter how bad we are at it, there is still something beautiful and decidedly spiritual; about it. Aww my precious Marillion, closest I come to religion!

Some gentle banter, then softly and sensitively he drifted into ‘Bridge Over Trouble Water’ an achingly beautiful song at the best of times, and to have it sung by Steve. Wow! That is how it is meant to be sung. He winced as he sung the high notes, and I doubt he was happy with it, but it was the spirit and truth that he sung it with that moved me. Love.

Then an aching dark drop into ‘Lap of Luxury’…which he wrote in Liverpool incidentally…This song is from my precious Brave album, and is another one I would recite painfully. Years of living with parents who thought paying for private school equated to love, when actually all I really wanted was for them to accept my CF. ‘Alone again in the Lap of Luxury’ sung more beautifully than I’ve heard him sing it for years. The ooo sounds that he draped around the lyrics making the exact same of my soul. ‘see the little girl spiralling down, this is a photograph of who she is now’ dark inner smile to myself at all the photographs I have of myself that I took to make me happy within the horrid loneliness that was my marriage. Then a painfully dark, menacing and forceful close of ‘oh Daddy you do not do…anymore’ Staggering. My mother looked at me, a fitting grief and horror on her face. Dark dark song.

Once the applause quietened h began reading a tour diary entry from back in ’97 (Spot where I got my inspiration for writing most of this stuff came from!)

He chose a day when he had been over in the USA with the rest of the boys. After doing the gorgeously mundane ‘we woke up in the morning on the bus…’ bit he recounted how he had done a live web-chat for the fans with the band for the first time, and how this had been a new and rather odd experience.

Occasionally people had typed abusive things (which I found very odd, why would you bother logging into it if you didn’t like the band?) he rather funnily mused his favourite of which had been ‘Marillion suck!’ to which my mother (outrageous woman) squealed ‘I wish’ thankfully I don’t think too many people heard that. But everyone did hear my dad call out ‘well they used too, before you joined’ shocked squeals and deep breaths in from the crowd!! Marillion used to have a different singer, back when they were famous, called Fish, who though very talented and charismatic can’t really sing, and who is pretty naff and proggy in style, Steve made them a much better band! All of this is a rather ongoing and hotly debated political issue in Marillion circles despite Fish having left the band seventeen odd years ago! Seriously contentious and controversial stuff hehe!

Somehow Ian (the drummer in Marillion) had acquired the business card of a secret service agent (God knows how!) this certain ‘Geoffrey Carer, secret service agent’ said in the same tone that h had introduce Vince Eager a tribute to Elvis’, had said if they fancied it they could have a tour round the Whitehouse. Where at the time a certain Bill Clinton resided, blissfully unaware of the Monica Lewinsky scandal that was about to break. So ensued a crazy recital of this utterly obscure tale of how Steve and his wife got taken round the Whitehouse, punctuated with dirty laughter from us all in the knowledge of the whole Monica scandal which came later! All of which was quite un-allowed but they were willing to look the other way as long as he never told anyone hahaha! Oh well we can keep it to ourselves!!

He curtly ended the tale with ‘why don’t people ever listen?’ before breaking into the positively heart-aching ‘Wichita Lineman’, his Daddy’s favourite song. ‘I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time’ Sting of held back tears, Bryan’s name whispered in my heart, sigh, I know exactly how that feels.

Then the tone held low and sad he continued into the haunting and thought provoking ‘21^st Century’. They don’t play this much, and I know it is a real special song to h because of the concepts it discusses, a beauty to hear as ever and it contains one of my favourite lines ever ‘This is the 21^st century. Can’t you get it through your head? This is the 21^st century. Magic isn’t dead’ though he missed it out! Damm these beautifully simplified versions of the songs!

He then began inviting people…at which point everyone started shouting out song titles, especially the VERY drunk Norwegians who desperately wanted him to play ‘The Whole Of The Moon’…continuing over the noise h pushed on with his offer that people could ask him questions.

Some one shouted out ‘What’s your favourite cod?’ in a thick Liverpuddlian accent understandably h looked rather puzzled about this… more shouting ‘car’, oh car, he was about to explain when they shouted again, and this time he got it, oh CHORD! Grinning wickedly h began playing twiddly bits on his piano, while impressively and pretentiously naming them! B flat is a good note people!

A woman then asked what his favourite Christmas present was. Smiling he began telling the tale of when he was seven and got given a little pie record player with two knobs for ‘volume’ and ‘tone’. Whish I could convey his rather suggestive lilt that he put on the word ‘tone’! He liked a lot of tone, but his mother didn’t so they used to argue over that. With it he got given the vinyl single of the Beatles ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I want to Hold Your Hand’ with the B side of ‘This Boy’ which he promptly broke into! Though he did end up singing ‘I don’t know the words to this verse…’ without breaking stride, then some rather awful audience singing as h faltered a little over a chord, lots of giggling ‘Then George used to go do do doooo!’ before coming to the end! He then thanked both the people for their questions and flippantly suggested ‘Denise with the Christmas thing’ take something off!

He then got asked what who his song writing influences where, to which his initial response was a very mind blown ‘Wow!’ at the potential vastness of the question. The crowd started calling out names like Jeff Buckley and Robbie Williams. He falteringly went into a tangent saying how he liked Tori Amos and her red bustier, which she had sadly refused to take off, before getting back to the question. To which the answer was that he didn’t really have any, because he didn’t actually know where the songs came from. He admitted that he didn’t even really know how to write a song, and that he wished he did because he’d sleep so much easier if he did. People asked if he woke up with melodies or lyrics in his head, to which he replied ‘hardly ever’. With the exception of TSE which he had gotten up and written a 2am one morning in its entirety and then had gone back to bed, then when he woke up in the morning he went and read what he had written.

He has two theories about how you write songs. One you pick them up from thoughts and feelings in the air like a radio antenna. Or two, which he feels is more likely you cook them away somewhere in the back of your head. He says how often him and the rest of Marillion will work for over three months and have nothing, and he will go home to his wife Sue all frustrated and worried about the fact they haven’t got a fucking thing, and then a month later they will have the album practically finished. So all that time it is cooking away ‘like a cake in an oven’ that you can’t reach. Some light-hearted jokes about Elton John writing songs in the mornings, and recording them in the afternoons, then going off shopping, or arranging weddings. Steve is very jealous that he can do that.

There is something of a reoccurring fear that appears in many Marillion songs, that Steve and the band are some sort of charlatans who can’t actually make music and everything up to now has been some sort of fluke, and one day it will just go and they won’t be able to do it anymore and all of us fans will be heartbroken. It was interesting to hear him speak about it so frankly and does finally explain why they insist on ending the set-list with ‘King’ so frequently.

‘That fire in your belly, that gave you the songs, is suddenly gone. And you feel like a fake’

Some musing over what to play next. One person asked for Jeff Buckley, Steve insisted he didn’t know any, before saying ‘Well we did do ‘Dream Brother’ with the h band of course, but I was just wearing a feather boa for that and shaking sleigh bells, that was my main contribution to that’. A few more shouts, one for Talk Talk which he also didn’t know well enough. Then a lady called out Kate Bush, Steve picked up on that and broke into ‘Cloudbusting’.

This is the first time I can ever remember hearing this song, and ever since it has become something of an anthem of mine. It sounds like sunlight, that moment when you first walk outside and it hits your skin, the way that glow feels, he sung it just like that. The piano notes were bright and sprung from under his fingers. The lyrics of the song and the love of the little girls daddy in the story was appropriately fitting considering how Steve had told us all the tale of his father that night. Gorgeous, gorgeous song YAY!

Massive cheers from the crowd, before Steve took a totally different direction and tone as he fell effortlessly into Leonard Cohen’s stunning ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’. Slight dirty smile from Steve and the audience as he sung the line ‘There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening’ in reference to the hilarity of the diary entry earlier in the evening. But the sombre tone of the song continued and kept us all rapt. It is one of those songs that feels like sadness and loss. ‘You’re living for nothing now, I hope you’re keeping some kind of record’ deep sigh inside myself, I often feel like that.

Lots of old memories of Bryan in my head, from the start when it was beautiful, all rose tinted and soft focused ‘thank you for the sadness you took from her eyes, I thought it was there for good’ there was a time when Bryan did that for me, took all the pain of my broken family and the hopelessness I was drowning in away and made me feel loved and healed.

‘I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I’m glad you stood in my way’ I think if there was line that could sum up everything that the last six years of being with Bryan has meant to me and the lack of regret that I feel over it all, that may just be it, especially when its sung like that, in a place that echoes with history in the way the Cavern Club does. Tears shining in my eyes again.

I could hardly applaud I was so moved. Then seamlessly and effortlessly he broke into the painfully relevant ‘It’s Too Late’. ‘Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time’ This flash in my head of being laid with Bryan in his bed when we first started going out, then laid alone in bed while he played EQ alone, the being with Dan on his new bed in his new house just after we built it. ‘It use to be so easy, living here with you, you, you were light and breezy and I knew just what to do, and now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool’ Lots of tears, that is EXACTLY how I felt and why I left. Iain put his arms round me, and my mum and Judith both leant over and put their hands warmly on me, they knew exactly why I was crying. In a transitional phase, they are always the hardest; just keep telling myself this will hurt less one day. ‘Maybe we just stopped trying. But it’s too late baby now it too late, though we really did try to make it. Something inside has died and I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it’ far too true. Sigh.

An Australian asked when there was going to be an Australian gig, to which Steve asked what the chances were of a thousand Australians turning up to an Australian gig. Saying it was basically too expensive to go down there. A woman’s voice with an Australian accent gleefully called out that Steve could stay at her house, to which her man piped ‘In the spare room!’ Laugher all round! Steve insisted ‘I’m not a savage you know!’ Big giggles from everyone, punctuated by a woman’s’ voice saying ‘dammit’ in a rather heartfelt fashion! More laughing and then my dad called ‘That’s not what I’ve heard!’ TART! Steve giggled a little, clearly loosing his train of thought, shouts out from the crowd, especially from the Norwegians who were still joyfully asking for ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ which h dutifully and stridently proceeded to play.

Big Norse cheers! Big powerful version of the song, sung just how it’s meant to be with everyone in the audience singing along, especially me, I’m most definitely one of those people that sees the whole of the moon ‘Came like a comet blazing you trail…Too high, too far, too soon!’ Yep that would be me! Part of my ongoing theme of how CF has pushed me to become something great, but then paying the price of having this pressure to go and be and see and do all these things before I run out of time, and selfishly not letting anything not even love hold me back from that, most definitely I want the whole of the moon, in fact I want the whole wide dark magical universe that wraps around it too!

Without breaking stride, to the point they were almost one song he went into ‘Spirit’ in fact I don’t know if they are one song or not. They go together as a whole. The crowd clapped along very enthusiastically which really pushed and lifted the song. A little too enthusiastic as it happened as h rocked his keyboard and beer went everywhere! Not that anyone really noticed till the end of the song.

Steve decided to try and mop it up with his little monkey teddy, which had been cuddling at poignant moments all night in order to draw big ‘aww’s’ from the crowd! Big plonky crossed key noises as he bashed this poor teddy along the piano drawing lots of awws from the crowd in sympathy for the monkey! Steve then asked if anyone had anything to mop beer up with, my dad shouted out ‘tongue!’ to which Steve replied ‘no to get it into my mouth’ lots of laughing, and Steve went back to using the monkey bear, which he then proceeded to cuddle while proudly announcing ‘now he smells like I do!’ Suddenly all seriousness as he told us he was going to play a Psychedelic Furs song, a falter, then oh no it isn’t.

The familiar strings on the keyboard heralded the start of the classic ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Iain next to me sang along like this song really meant something to him, which made me a little sad. I was also a little frustrated with myself that I didn’t know all the words; it’s the kind of song you should know the words to.

Then we had our Psychedelic Furs song, the absolutely gorgeous ‘Ghost In You’ I can see why he likes this one so much, it’s the kind of song I could imagine my beautiful Mr Hogarth writing. ‘Stars fall down like rain’ aww just such a stunning line and a pretty image. ‘Love, love, love, you can’t give it away’ sigh and soft smile, beautiful boy.

Then into ‘The Party’. This song always makes me think of two very specific incidents. The first was a time when for some reason my sister Shellie and I were in the Volvo parked in Harlington, I think my dad had nipped into a shop, and we were listening to ‘The Party’ and singing along, then when it got to the line ‘she was in backroom, full of strange aromas, and noises and candles, that is where they found her’ there had suddenly been this really strong smell of candles in the car and it had creeped us both out!

The second incident was a party I went to back when I was at school. It was supposed to be just a few friends and some videos, but had turned into this whole big massive house party where all these random people came, and the house got totally trashed and they were all writing in blood down the walls and all this crazy shit. And there was me in the middle of it all, having always led a very sheltered life and never really having gone out much suddenly in this crazy wild party. Though I didn’t really party, I was just in healy priestess mode, running about laying people in recovery positions and holding their heads while they were sick. It’s funny that is actually probably the point where I found magic, having sworn I would after reading about Milamber in the Riftwar. That night was probably the first time I ever consciously poured light into someone else. Which sounds incredibly pretentious and fluffy and weird, but I know what I mean.

Since ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ the crowd had been singing more, and loudly. A little falteringly and out of key the crowd sang most of the song, which was fun! I thought it fitting that Steve play this on a night that was so much about the history of him as it is about his first party and how as a young lad he had been disorientated in the new loud grown up world.

The singing was loud and boisterous as everyone really got into it, with lots of laughing at ourselves as we were really quite bad. Then there is this part in the song where the piano does a sort of upswing and it breaks into a guitar solo, though of course Rothery wasn’t there to do it. H just played up to that point anyway, clearly having not entirely worked out what to do, and then crazily one of the Norwegians just shouted out ‘Steve Rothery’ and the crowd then proceeded to SING the guitar solo! It was SO unbelievably crazy, but SO cool! I have to admit though, I didn’t actually personally sing it, I was far too busy doubled over laughing hysterically! Only Marillion fans!

In another complete change on tone h dropped achingly beautifully into the delicate ‘Afraid Of Sunlight’. The audience changing with him were all suddenly quiet and respectful as they let the song was over them like a quiet sad sunrise. The singing that there was from us took on a hymn like quality ‘Been in pain, for so long, I can’t even say where it hurts anymore’ deep sigh, what a line. It is one of those songs that is very Steve, which when he sings, he pours as much emotion into it as I think a song could ever possibly contain. Massive moved applause from the audience.

The first notes of the next song, a man called out ‘I love you Steve’ it was really sweet and h blew him a kiss. More notes falling out of the piano and it dawned on me he was actually about to play what I hadn’t dared hope I’d ever hear live the immense and shattering ‘Ocean Cloud’. A slight frustration at the last few people still calling out, how could they not realise what he was starting to play?! Oh my god ‘Ocean Cloud’ live!!

He sung quiet a bit of it without the piano, just his voice stood on the prow of a ship in a wide ocean, the spray of the water on the deck, and the vast loneliness of the sea in the echoes of his voice. Ok so he is officially the best singer in the world ever. No one else ever sings like that.

‘He’s loosing it, and he knows’ the piano coming back in, lapping around his words like water on a dark cold northern shore. ‘The smell of the earth, is his favourite smell’ the piano suddenly deep and rich enough that you smell soil and forest in your hands, then rolling back into being water again. Deep water surging far out in the depths of the ocean.

Then the lift in the line ‘You can take all the boys and the girls in the world, I would trade them this morning for my sweet Ocean Cloud’ it felt like clouds scurrying in the wide sky, and the way that winds whips the sails of a ship, it sounded like hope.

I kept my eyes closed for all of it, and have never felt more like I was stood in the place and on the adventure that ‘Ocean Cloud’ is about. How can any band be good enough to write like that?

He then flowed almost seamlessly, despite the cheering, into ‘A Day In The Life’ I hadn’t ever heard this before, but all the grownups round me sang it passionately, and I got the distinct sense I’ve actually known it all my life. He conjured up the 80’s and the darkness of Conservative policy all Falklands war and corruption, all overlaid and hidden by the boom and the bust of the yuppy middle classes. I decided rather quickly that I like this song a lot!

He then wandered off stage, and we all cheered and shouted until he came back- YAY!!

Lots of inner-audience shushing and once we settle Steve began talking again…

‘In 1989 or at some point after I probably came to your attention’ warm laughs from the crowd this being the point he joined Marillion. He then very sincerely talked about how much he loved the band and how Mark, Pete, Steve and Ian were some of the most amazing human beings he has ever known. A little pause to work out how long that had been ‘Seventeen years, why people have grown up and…and have sex in that time’ At which point Steve along with about half the front row looked very pointedly at me! Dirty giggles, I don’t know what they could possibly mean! Though it took him till he was twenty-six which was a very long time ago, midway through the industrial revolution apparently! Didn’t hit puberty till he was twenty-three…where was he going with this?

Some lost little hums then emotionally back to his point that Marillion do in fact have the most fucking amazing fans! Big cheers, punctuated by someone calling out ‘Well we have the most fucking amazing band!’ He went on to say how in the last seventeen years he’d had some truly amazing moments, most of which were in-front of us lot! I can honestly say the same back at him! A rather drunk Liverpuddlian heckled ‘I’ve been asleep!’ to which Steve replied ‘Well you’ve missed out then!’

Point…getting back to the point. Steve tried to say that he has always been conscious that any success he has had with the band, has been somewhat inherited. Echoing the thoughts of the room my Daddy murmured ‘not true’ loud enough so everyone could here. He went on to say how to have now come out here on his own and to have all of us show up and to be so warm has been self-affirming than he could put into words and he thanked us from the bottom of his heart. Touched everyone just cheered and one woman speaking for us all called out ‘We love you Steve’ I had to try quite hard not to cry! Beautiful moment.

Then slowly he sang ‘No One Can’ he sang it so that is sounded like the way you feel when you fall in love, made it feel exactly the same as you feel inside when you love someone. All the beautiful boys I have had the honour of knowing and loving in my life, and all the intricate ways they have wandered into my world trickled through my head and my heart. Robert and Tony. Bryan. Jonathan. Bryan. Nick. Bryan. Dan. Adam. And of course my eternally magical Steve Hogarth. Precious precious people, who are in everything that I love; I need new words to describe them.

Loud cheers before he went into ‘Life On Mars’ we all sang along. My mother looked at me singing along very impressed, as if somehow there could be some way I’d got to this age without knowing the words to this! Pft I could almost be offended! Tatty faded disco gorgeousness! It made me smile that he did play a Bowie track because my daddy used to go and watch him when he was a mime artist third on the bill and no one knew who he was. It just kind of fitted with the fact we were in the Cavern Club where the equally unknown Beatles used to play, the line ‘Lennon’s on sale again’ only served to punctuate my musings.

Long cheers as Steve briefly went off stage. He came back and confidently went into ‘Living For The City’ I had to smile inside at the memory of Neal Casal out in Barcelona saying ‘white boy sings gospel’ it seemed so fitting!

He doesn’t really sing in this style, or play piano in this jazzy fashion ever so it was really nice to get to hear him do something so different. Then he broke it all down, and as I had Justin Timberlake’s voice in my head going ‘they don’t do this anymore…’ Steve instructed all the boys to sing the word ‘Living’ shyly they did getting stronger after a few goes. Justin paralleling with h in my head as he said ‘now all the girls sing’..then he went high ‘Just enough’ I couldn’t believe it, they don’t do this anymore so how insanely cool is it to get to actually do it, just like in Justin’s track hehe!

This unbelievable atmosphere that there had been all night seemed to suddenly grow even richer and just wrap around us all completely. The deep voices of the Norwegians held up the boys side ‘Living’ the girls suddenly all of us beautiful achingly sang ‘Just enough’ And it went on, we kept it up, gradually getting stronger and deeper, while h harmonised over the top of all of us. Then he broke back into singing the verse and we kept going, the Norse purring the boys line deeply near the back, and the sweet girls doing our line under Steve. WOW!!! SO AWESOME!! Didn’t want that to end. Smile to myself ‘This is my church’

The Norwegians out of their cage started chanting for ‘Working Town’ it was really so cool to have Steve nod, smile and then start to play it. First time I’ve heard this track, it’s off an early album of Steve’s and is essentially about his childhood and Doncaster. I see it as a prelude to and an extension of This Strange Engine, which he couldn’t really play without Marillion, so this was almost like a fitting substitute. It is a really pretty song. Very innocent, and very Steve. Cries of thank you from the Scandinavians, polite bunch really hehe!

Then a slow beautiful fall into the iconic hymn that is ‘Estonia’ which is also on the TSE album. As I said earlier this album came out around the time my Nanny Brown was dying, and fittingly in the end Daddy chose to play ‘Estonia’ at her funeral. Years later when my other Grandma died I did a speech at her funeral, I knew Grandad wouldn’t tolerate us playing ‘rock’ music, so I read it like a poem because it is so eternal and true. ‘No one leaves you when they live in your heart and mind, no one dies, they just move to the other side, when we are gone watch the world simply carry on, we live on laughing and in no pain, we’ll stay and be happy with those who loved us today’ tears for all of the beauty of that of course. Soundtrack to the entire contents of my heart and soul.

Then an upswing into the start of ‘Three Minute Boy’ which he promptly broke off so he could explain some of the history behind it. When Steve was about ten and the family were living in this council house in Doncaster and his gran was still ‘very interesting’ much giggling from the crowd. He said it wasn’t a very interesting life, and in-fact one of the most interesting things that happened was his dad sitting there and telling him about the interesting life he’d had! Much to his mothers annoyance, as she’d never been anywhere and her young sons head was getting filled with all these wild ideas!

Apparently on Saturday afternoons however, he would sit with his gran, cheers from the audience at the mention of her, and they would watch the wrestling, highlight of the week, lots of giggles at that! His crazy gran used to get really into it and would scream and shout at the TV! There would always be a good guy who wore white trunks, and a bad guy who wore black trunks, or leather trunks if he was really bad! Along with cauliflower ears and an eye patch hehe! His gran, God I wish I could have met this woman, would shout ‘Rip his arm off! HIT HIM WITH THE SOGGY END!’ and equally mad things and young Steve would get distracted into just watching her, I think I’d have done the same!

Sometimes though something really amazing would happen and The Beatles or The Rolling Stones would be on TV, and he would sit there transfixed, thinking ‘oh my god, oh my god, that is just the best thing ever’ to be able to make music like that and have all those people running around after you like that, just wow. Soft laughs from all of us at the irony of that, our beautiful Mr h, here we are, ‘all in love with you and stuff!’

He went on to say how ‘Three Minute Boy’ was also about the music industry and how… he paused and someone fittingly shouted out ‘Sucks!’… which h caught onto and expanded into yet another one of Marillion’s ongoing themes about what the music industry does to the people who enter it. And how it builds them up to be this big thing and gives them the whole world, then just gets bored and takes it all away and drops that person like a stone. Some side jokes about the recent bitching there had been on the Marillion message boards about Madonna, then back to his point. This was that no one could be strong enough to stand that. He said there is a cave somewhere; his voice went husky and evocative as he said that he’s been there and it is where they keep this box that holds all the treasures of the earth. When you open it is glows like the case in Pulp Fiction, then they close it and take you away again, old ache in his voice as he gently pronounced you are never quite the same after that, and you spend your whole life trying to get back there.

I can’t imagine how hard that must be. It is very easy to underestimate it as just a shallow pop dream, but you could hear in his voice how very deeply it went into him. Fits with my on-running hypothesis, which I largely formed by watching Robbie Williams and The Stone Roses, that all the drugs in the music industry come from people trying to find that same high that they get when then are on stage with thousands of people hanging on their every word.

To belong and to feel wanted are amongst the most important human needs you will ever find, and they are rarely met. There are too many people in this world who spend a lifetime searching for affirmation of their existence and never finding it. Steve Hogarth, this strange engine, with his coffee percolator and all weird pink clothes, and a father who wanted to be on a far away horizon I’m sure is very familiar with the sensation of being an outsider and unwanted.

I grew up in a wood where I lived in an entirely different world, there was never anyone around who was anything like me, for a long time not even anyone who was the same species as me, and I have a Daddy who far too frequently would prefer I had never been born, followed by a husband who wanted me even less. Though I have come to be very good at affirming my own existence, there is enough left in me that on some levels, I can identify precisely with what my darling h was saying.

The most Beatles-Esq. track Marillion have ever written sung here in the Cavern Club where the Beatles used to play. This was possibly one of the most amazing single moments I have EVER been part of, I sang my heart out, laughed and giggled, and cried because it was so beautiful and because I could feel the most amazing gig I think I have ever seen drawing to a close. So this was how we ended…

The Cavern Club Version of ‘Three Minute Boy’ here we go…

Here today

Gone this afternoon

Another jilt we almost remembered.

What’s the story?

Sex and drugs again.

Business as usual,

The clocks already running

That bit was about Oasis.

Lalalala

This next bits about John and Yoko

When he was young

Staring at the TV

And me obviously

He watched the fun happening to other people.

Now they scream as they run after him.

It’s like a dream,

Like Elvis and The Beatles

A three minute song is all he wrote

He only did it for a joke

They played him on the radio

From Tokyo to Timbuktu

And three minute boy aint that something

They named their children after him

The good times rolled beneath his feet

He skipped along the one way street

She’s a pretty girl

Oo do that again

She’s a pretty girl

He don’t know how it started

She made a movie

He almost remembered

Poor audience

She measured up

They moved into a basement

John and Yoko bit

‘We’re so in love!’

They giggled to the nation!

Everybody!

Lalalalalala

Lalalala

A three minute millionaire they said

The number rattled round his head

They spun him three times round the globe

She waited patiently at home

And all the pretty girls wanted him

In places that he’d never even been

Too much love will do you in

Forgive and forget

And forget and forgive

Yeaaaah

Yeaaaaaaaaah

Yeaaaah

Three minute kid is here again

Surround by three minute friends

He found someone to understand

To shock the world and hold his hand

No religion

No restraint

No direction

No complaints

No future and

No way out

No time now to think about it!

All the moneys gone

Don’t know what he spent it on

Girl friends gone off with the jag

She’s gone back to her mum and dad

He’s curled up on the studio floor

He just can’t do it anymore

Flash gun went off without warning

He’ll read about it tomorrow morning!

Ahhhhh ahhh

YEAAhhh yeaaah

YEAAAHH

OOOOoo

OOoooo

Yeaaaahhh

Yeaahhh

Yeaah—yelp

Laughter...oo I’m glad that wasn’t me!

She’s goin’ off with someone

Yoooou…

In this week

A number two

Three minute kid, ain’t that something

Ain’t that something

Everybody very softly

Ooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooo

Ooooooooooo

All together now

Ooooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooo

Ooo

YEAHS!!!

THANKYOU LIVERPOOL!

The after-show

My goodness me! Emotional pause, wipe away the tears then …Three odd hours! THREE! Without question one of the best gigs ever ever ever EVER!! WOW! WOW! YAY!!! OH MY GOD WOW!! Best gig since The Walls! Best gig ever!!

The Walls is a restaurant in Oswestry near where they recorded Radiation, and they traded having dinner there for doing a few gigs. It was an amazing few nights which became intrinsic to the general movement in Marillion circles where everyone gave in totally to how much they love the band, and admitted it was worth going across the whole entire world to see them play! We ended up dancing on tables (though to be fair I think I imagine it was tables, when it was probably just something boring like the isles!) to ‘Cannibal Surf Babe’! It has been something of a yard-stick ever since!

Tonight though! WOW!! We did the Justin Timberlake thing…Living just enough…Three Minute boy have you ever heard anything like it?...The bulldog…TSE..TSE…WOW!...Ocean Cloud god it sounded like the whole sea!...Cloudbusting aww was like hearing sunlight…Easter god our singing was SO bad!...The guitar solo! WE SANG THE GUITAR SOLO!!...Estonia just beautiful… the end of The Lap of Luxury, chilling stuff…His GRAN!!! LOON!!...lead in his pencil indeed...explains SO much! Three Minute Boy…WOW!! We got to hear him sing where The Beatles used to play WOW!! He’s better than The Beatles!! WOW!!

There were a bunch of us all squeaking such things excitedly at each other barely drawing breath in-between! Hehehe! Awesome! The crowd broke up around us, and some friends who had been further along came over and we chatted and cuddled! Great thing about gigs they always involve lots of cuddles!

My dear mama insists that at this point about a hundred boys swooped down upon me, which I deny! There were, you know, a few! Hehe! Pretty Toria! But I honestly didn’t notice, I was talking to Iain and Gary, and not looking at that very tall very tasty boy over there at all! WOW! Best gig ever!!

Oooo lots of Norwegians, oh and the tasty boy who turned out to be Swedish. This would be the very superbly noisy Web Scandinavia suddenly around me then! Mmm no musing in my head over whether Swedish boys are as good as Swedish girls in bed at all of course?! Hehe!

‘So you coming to Norway then?’

‘Erm..’

‘You should come to Oslo!’

‘Alright then!’

And that is exactly how I decided I was going to go to Norway on my own!

This rather nice young man from Sweden asked if I knew any clubs round here. Missing the invite beautifully naively I said he should ask Judith as she lived here she would know! Kick yourself right here Toria haha!

Right off to find my Daddy and give him back his kit. Found my dad talking to someone and gave him big cuddles while he finished what he was saying. Then asking if anyone had seen Aziz, I quite fancied a cuddle off that gorgeous boy, and a bit of a natter of course hehe!

Lots of post gig floatyness, lots of cuddles, lots of chatting about the gig, gossiping about the previous gigs, and the rumours of various Marillion related topics! Norway got mentioned quite a bit too! Mm not looking over at that yummy boy at all of course, didn’t keep catching his eye or anything! Eeeek he’s looking at me!! ARGHHH!! Quick go hide behind Mummy and Judith! Actually I’m shattered, let me just sit on this table for a while hehe! See that’s why I always end up on tables after gigs..ooer!

I sat watching everyone crowded round Steve talking to him, and taking photos with him. Just like Elvis and The Beatles now my gorgeous boy!

I was talking to a very nice lady with my Mummy for a while, she had awesome silver spike-heeled fuck me boots that I wanted to steal rather a lot! She was also really nice, and I know I kind of know her from some gig or another, I seem to get that a lot. Quick glance at the Swedish boy hehe! Then taking down Terje’s email address so that I could sort out the trip to Norway with him. Saying hello to Karstien who I recognised from the last night of the Not Quite Christmas tour, he has almost ended up coming and crashing at our house. I’m not totally convinced he will remember this moment however as he was rather out of it hehe, bad drunken Viking!

Then slowly watching the room empty as more people got ushered out by the bouncers. The discussion began turning to the ritualistic food searchyness, and we decide we would go for a curry, and began plotting cars and locations, and rounding up the party.

I sat on my little table till the last few people milled around Steve, then I mooched over, and gave him a big cuddle, like I always do. BEST CUDDLES in the WHOLE world! I thanked him for the gig, and said I felt that it had come together just how he had planned, and that it stuck to the concept he had talked about back in Aylesbury. More gorgeous cuddles. Then I invited him for a curry!

Everything came together and my Dad gleefully filled up the Landrover with random people, till there wasn’t any space left for me! It’s ok I will follow along with h in a bit.

I helped his techie who I think was called Rod, pack the last of the gear into the car, including the wedding invitation off the coffee table in the backstage area! Quick eek in my head at being backstage in The Cavern Club, Ringo stood here! We were just about to drive off when one of the staff from the venue asked us if we were forgetting something. We looked at him blankly for a moment and the Rod and Steve realised they had forgotten to get the money! Ever so slightly important! Then off to the hotel, debating if they had been meant to get the money off the venue the night before, and if so they were going to be in trouble with Lucy!

As we drove through the streets, with a not very convincing and slightly drunk Mr Hogarth directing it began to snow. Because clearly this evening was not insanely magical enough already!! It was really weird snow though, it was kind of a mix between hail, snow and polystyrene balls!

We arrived the hotel, and had fun navigating the car till it was backed up against the door. We all got out and poked at the snow, ooo the urge to throw snowballs at Mr Hogarth hehe!!

It turned out that this hotel was in-fact a studio that had guest rooms in it. And as I blissfully walked across the wooden floor of it, admiring the glass and metal staircase Steve explained what the place was, he called me Vicky! I’m going to have to have words with him about that! Though to be fair I didn’t exactly protest and he was at that point saying that Brave was mixed here. At which point I very nearly dropped the two laptops I was carrying!

Brave. Brave! The most amazing album ever written! My most favourite album EVER was born here, in this place! WOW! This is THE place where she came together! Quite how I got across the room looking so nonchalant and unperturbed is a little beyond me.

I know Brave wasn’t written here, it was written in a mansion in France, but it was mixed here! That’s almost as good! WOW!! Right here where I’m stood!

Oblivious to the screaming awe in my head, Steve continued, Coldplay recorded a bunch of their albums here too, look there are their gold discs on that wall. To which I just sort of hummed an acknowledgement completely daunted with shock, The Cavern Club seemed a bit pants now! Particularly as it turned out that The Cavern Club that is there now is not the same one that the Beatles played in, as that was demolished, though to be honest I’m going to continue to pretend forever that it is the original, as its more fun that way! Then I wandered out to the car and got some more cases and the keyboard stand.

Once all the gear was out the car Steve, Rod and I checked in. I bizarrely got asked if I was Lucy Jordache and whether I’d be staying too, which though would have been nice to go along with, I clearly didn’t! I then took the food order off of the boys so that I could relay it to the guys in the restaurant and they went off to settle in.

I stood reading the notice board and looking up at Coldplays’ ‘Parachutes’ and ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ discs on the wall. It was about then that it quite hit me where I was.

WOW!! Chris Martin stood here! BRAVE! WOW! BRAVE!! Don’t be so silly and star-struck Toria, this is just a studio, this is just where these guys come to work everyday, and it probably get’s as boring as any normal old job. But…but...BRAVE!! WOW!! BRAVE!! Possibly even in that little room right there with all its sparkly lights and sound desk! EEEEEEK!!!! This is the most crazy insane awesome night of my life ever! I’m stood where Brave was born! That sound, all those layers that make it so unreal, the haunting echoes and the water, all of it mixed together right here! Oh my god my life is so cool! I’m so glad I left Bryan and came out into this world or I would have never had this adventure! Oh my god I can’t believe I’m here!! And none of my smelly friends will understand why this means so much to me because they don’t get the Marillion thing, but I don’t care!! I’m stood where Brave was born whoooooo!!! Ooo Steve and Rod are back...composure dear, don’t want to be one of those annoying crazy obsessive fans now do you?!

To the Indian? Does anyone know the way? Out we headed into the freezing winter air. It had stopped snowing now, but it was thickly laid on all the cars. We scraped it off and poked at it fascinated by how weird it was. Snowball fight? No not a good plan! Time for food.

Still completely shell shocked and in a total dream state I tried my best to keep up with the boys as we walked across Liverpool. I had to hitch my skirts up, and was feeling pretty tired, and awestruck, and panicking h had got us totally lost, so didn’t take too much in whilst at the same time fiercely swearing in my head I’d never forget a second of it!

I do remember the streets were cobbled and narrow, and there was at one point these odd lamppost things with LED panels at the top with messages scrolling round them. It was like some obscure 21^st century version of the lamppost! All this magic, all this snow, and now a lamppost dear god I’m in Narnia!! I’m in Narnia!!

God…This night was just too amazing to be real!!

We got to the restaurant, and stumbled through the door into the warm. It was very red, that was the colour it was painted and that was the colour it felt; all rich and warm in comparison with the white of the snow. There were these odd little booths with the smaller tables in that could be curtained off. Our rabble however were on a long table against one wall. Rod and I sat on one side, and h shuffled up next to my dad on the other.

Pretty soon the food arrived, I stole some of Daddy’s starter and chatted to Rod about music technology and how he got into his line of work. Really, really nice interesting young man, passionate about his job and all the gadgets it entails, hehe boys are so eternally cute when they talk about gadgets.

My Daddy suddenly asked Steve if he’d seen my i-pod. A very sleepy Mr Hogarth shook his head, so my dad insisted I show him. I agreed on the proviso they didn’t all start crying again! I handed it over to Steve and just watched him read it, as Daddy looked on his eyes sparkling with tears. Without saying anything Steve handed it back to me, and took my hands and wrapped his hands round them, and just held them, pouring across enough love, and warmth, and light as he did so, that there was no need to say anything at all. Eeeek! Will have me crying in a minute! Beautiful, beautiful boy. Love.

I can’t really remember much after that, I got too tired to take much in. When we left the restaurant it had started to snow again, and we all stood fascinated in that, with all the staff from the restaurant around us equally amazed by its weirdness! Daddy arrived with the Landrover and his camera and took all these magical photos of us in the snow. Then we headed slowly home. We stopped at a travel lodge after a few hours because it was too difficult to travel any further. I remember thinking I didn’t want to go to sleep because then this night would end. Then I remember singing snatches of Brave over and again, finally drifting off to the memory of the crowd ooooo’ing softly at the end of ‘Three Minute Boy’.

THANK YOU LIVERPOOL