A fish out of water

Let's be clear here, the fish out of water was me, not Fish the legendary singer who was clearly in his element in a small pub venue packed to the gunnels with Fish fans.

Fish himself made a comment about everybody being fans and knowing the words to all the songs as well as he did but he failed to spot me in the middle of the crowd clearly clueless.

But cluelessness was not a problem. Fish was absorbing for two and a half hours (including two encores) spinning together a series of songs and stories accompanied by two long-standing friends and colleagues on guitar and piano.

The small venue, the small band and the interaction with the crowd made it more like an evening with Fish than a rock concert. I think many/most people were expecting the later but Fish's good humour and stagecraft soon won everybody over.

I was not expecting to recognise anything, other than Kayleigh (Marillion's big hit from 1985) but the Fish fans were less familiar with his slow solo stuff too and it was the more raucous Marillion songs that closed the show that really got the crowd hopping.

I took bit of a gamble going to see Fish knowing so little of his music, and even less about his life that his stories were about, but it paid off and the long evening never dropped below interesting. That and a couple of beers were more than enough to brighten a dull August (!) evening.