A rainy day. Streets crowded with students, tourists and onlookers. Conversations in hushed French tones. It’s April 2009, and Montreal is abuzz with more than just fashion and pomme frites. It’s the “Happiness Is The Road” Marillion weekend and at least 2000 of the people passing by in the streets have traveled far and wide to take place in one of the most anticipated three day concert events in the world. Forget about Ozzfest, Bonnaroo or even Bloodstock… this festival has three decades of top selling cds, critically acclaimed albums and one of the most dedicated fan bases in the history of rock music.
But before we dive into what happened behind the black velvet curtain… one has to give Marillion the proper back story. How did a band from Aylesbury, England make the Guinness Book of World Records, develop a dedicated fan base willing to pay in advance for a cd to be written, recorded and produced before a single note had been written and cultivate a cult like, reverent following across every continent?
It all started with a fish. A lead singer named Fish who was the voice of the band’s first top 10 international single “Kaleigh and their first four studio albums. While Fish’s career has floundered a bit, Marillion has managed to stay alive and well if not slightly under the radar of the general listening public. And that’s ok.
With the onset of the Hogarth Era, that’s Steve Hogarth for the uninitiated , the band took on a different sound, lyrics to live by and coincidentally one of the best, “this is how you make it in the music industry” business models that few have seen or been able to reproduce. If Richard Branson had been a rock band, you’d have an idea of just how prolific against all odds Marillion has been.
Long credited as being THE band to first successfully use the internet to reach their fans, Marillion has done that and more. They have proven that you can let the music business work you, or you can work it instead.
The band has enjoyed critical and commercial success with a string of UK Top Ten hits spanning their career, and an estimated fifteen+ million total worldwide album sales and none of this has been happenstance. It has been a calculated; thought provoking approach… randomness doesn’t enter into Marillion’s picture except for perhaps the music. (Given that the band's music has changed stylistically throughout their career from more of Peter Gabriel-esque Genesis sound to the lush progressive, and very British, storytelling rock of today)
But that story has a great niche. The fans.
Sure almost every band has them, but very few have the ilk that is a Marillion devotee . It all started with a byte.
Over 20 years ago, Marillion started upon an approach that now has them widely considered within the music industry to have been one of the first mainstream acts to have tapped the potential for commercial musicians to interact with their fans via the Internet. According to their Wiki page, “the history of the band's use of the internet is described by Michael Lewis in the book Next: The Future Just Happened as an example of how the internet is shifting power away from established elites, such as record producers and tapping into any band’s greatest resource.”
For Marillion that resource is a mine of gold. The fan.
As a result, Marillion is renowned for having a dedicated following that breaks all social and industry norms. Using their website, pod casts, bi-annual conventions and regular fan club publications Marillion has conjured up brand loyalty that defies economics and quite frankly logic. Fans have supported the band economically by paying to have records produced, collecting dvds, tee shirts and other swag and perhaps most importantly regularly traveling considerable distances, often across oceans, to attend single gigs or Marillion weekends.
The Internet may have saved Marillion, but it was truly a baptism for their fans. It connected Joe in Rhode Island with Gabrielle in Germany and Akiko in Japan followed along. The World Wide Web was cast and suddenly Marillion was no longer just a band but a way of life. Or in some cases a vacation from life. As the banner read “Happiness is the Weekend.”
Let’s go back to Montreal.
It was there that I got to see firsthand the phenomenon that is a Marillion weekend. Day one arrived and upon making my way to the Olympia Theatre, I saw a line wrapped around the building, anticipation gleaning in the crowd’s faces and the kind of camaraderie you find when friends are doing something together---even if that friend has nothing more in common with you other than the disc they have in their cd changer and perhaps a bit of disposable income to jaunt to Montreal for the weekend. Lugging my camera equipment, and resident Marillion insider and fan, Dr. Jon Epstein with me, we made our way to the sound board to stake a seat and a view. There was a rush and a push behind me and turning around I saw the crowd running to the front of the stage. These were no teenagers drunk with frenzy… the core demographic probably once was, but just as Marillion has grown, their fans have grown up, they just never left home.
Soon, the lights filled the stage and I made my way to the camera crew. Asking nicely if I could hunch under the boom I found that I could actually climb onto the stage. Perched there, I waited for the band to appear and that they did. With sound and fury and a roar of applause from a myriad of fans, they were suddenly there and Hogarth with his impish grin headed towards me- I’m thinking this is where the fun ends because my photo pass didn’t allow me to actually be on stage right- and instead it is where the fun started. Hogarth came right up to me, grabbed my hat, put it on his head and with a Christ-like stance- opened his arms to the crowd. The welcome mat was indeed unrolled and the coming of Marillion was for some as close to a religious experience as they will ever have.
I scanned the crowd with my camera and paused. There was not one person in the sold out theatre who wasn’t fully engaged. Lip synching, singing along, jumping up and down… it was a synchronized passion play. If Marillion is anything they are zealous… in their Music. Words, Stories, Humor and Tears.
Their fans, who are indeed worldwide, are right there with them every step of the way. When you buy a three day ticket for one band you are committing yourself to having an experience not just a good time.
The rest of the weekend was spent with a little sightseeing, grabbing dinner with Mark Kelly , keyboardist and the , “this comes with the territory“, spokesman for the band… and trying to find a way to take you through the singular experience that in many ways sums up not only what Marillion does but what they are.
Sometimes the answer comes where you least expect it. Towards the end of the second evening, I had plowed through eight rolls of film, climbing and perching to try the impossible- capture the essence of Marillion on film… and I decided I needed to stretch my legs and I found myself in the ladies room peering into the mirror. As the words from “Runaway” played in my head, “Have the nights and the days that you've come through… Made the right seem wrong and the false seem true”, I heard a woman exclaim behind me, “It’s the woman in the hat!” I turned and saw a middle aged native of Montreal standing there with tears in her eyes. I don’t know if she had followed me or just happened to be in the same place at the same time, but it was a bit of serendipity.
If I or anyone else had ever questioned what it is that Marillion does, it was all summed up in a 5 minute conversation in a bathroom in the Olympia Theatre. This stranger in her mix of English and French was determined to try and describe to me what she was experiencing. I found out she was a nurse by day and this was her first Marillion concert. Not an easy task through the tears and the requisite effect beer has on French Canadian women. As she waved her hands excitedly and tried to find the right adjectives, it finally came down to this… she said: “ It is so amazing what they do… I am moved by the music, I do not have the words to explain and the people… this is beautiful… and I don’t want it to end.”
Sure, all good things come to an end, but as tears welled in her eyes, I realized that business plans and marketing strategies aside, Marillion has managed to do what few bands ever truly accomplish.
I walked out, found my guide, Jon and said, “I think a woman I just met had a musical epiphany”.
He smiled and said “I know--there’s no such thing as a casual Marillion fan- you are either way into them or you’re not”.
From what I have experienced, I have to agree.
Marillion becomes pages in people’s sonic scrapbooks where the photos are sealed with joy and sorrow and the treasure is the story that keeps on telling.
Special thanks to Dr. Jon Epstein who has worked with Marillion over the past two decades. Without his influence, effort and resilience this article would not have been possible.
