MARILLION: Real To Reel LP 1984 UK (good condition). LIVE recording of the classic line up. Check videos

Description

Label: Fame – FA 41 3142 1, Fame – FA 4131421
Format: Vinyl , LP, Album
Country: UK
Date: 1984
Rock, Symphonic Rock , Prog Rock

A1 Assassing 7:18
A2 Incubus 8:31
A3 Cinderella Search 5:24
B1 Forgotten Sons 10:11
B2 Garden Party 6:30
B3 Market Square Heroes 6:49

Total length:46:48

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Artwork By [Collage] – Julie Hazelwood Artwork By [Sleeve] – Fish Concept , Mark Wilkinson Mixed By – Simon Hanhart Photography – Julian Cull Producer – Marillion , Simon Hanhart Written-By, Composed By – Marillion Notes Side A recorded at The Spectrum Montreal Canada. June 19th & 20th 1984. Side B recorded at Leicester De Montford Hall. England March 5th 1984. Mixed at The Marquee Studios, London. Published by Marillion Music / Charisma / Chappell P 1984 Original Sound Recordings Made By EMI Records Ltd C 1984 EMI Records Ltd

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Listening to it now, it still sounds fantastic so clearly it’s a masterpiece. The album contains live songs from the first 2 Marillion albums. It starts with Marillion’s first hit (Assassing), which is a great hard rocking song and a lot less commercial than their subsequent hits (Kayleigh and Lavender). The album progresses with Incubus, Cinderella Search and Emerald Lies which have passionate singing by Fish that fits in perfectly with the playing of the band.

The last three songs on the album are where Marillion really go for it. There’s Forgotten Sons and then Garden Party, which merges seamlessly into Market Square Heroes. It’s fast, energetic, exciting hard rocking prog.

Thanks to Marillion for keeping prog alive in the eighties. This album shows why Marillion were the top prog band of the decade.

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This is Marilion in their heyday (I prefer “Real to reel” far above the lacklustre double live album “The thieving magpie”) after they had convinced the musical press by delivering the outstanding “Fugazi”. This live LP is the world tour from that album, it’s partly recorded in Canada, the cradle of Prog Archives. If you listen to “Real to reel” you will be carried away by the distinctive vocals and emotional lyrics from Fish (“Forgotton sons” is such a very moving anti-war song), the varied and compelling guitarwork from Steve Rothery (the guitar soloes in “Incubus” is at the level of the best Latimer and Gilmour), the pleasant and lush keyboards from Mark Kelly (he’s more than Tony Banks his twin-brother) and the dynamic rhythm-section from Ian Mosley (ex-Trace, the Dutch keyboard treat) and Pete Trawavas. To me this is still the best progrock after The Seventies. ESSENTIAL!!!

Real to Reel is the first live album by the British neo-progressive rock band Marillion, released in November 1984. It was co-produced by Simon Hanhart who had mixed the first two studio albums and co-produced the studio version of “Cinderella Search”.

Recording and content
Real to Reel was recorded on 5 March 1984 at De Montfort Hall in Leicester, England and 19–20 June 1984 at the Spectrum in Montreal, Canada.

In addition to two songs each from the first two albums, Script for a Jester’s Tear (1983) and Fugazi (1984), the original LP version contained two tracks previously not available on any albums, the A-side of the band’s 1982 debut single “Market Square Heroes” and “Cinderella Search”, the B-side of “Assassing”.

Eduardo Rivadavia  called the album “an excellent live document of Marillion” and “a strong case for the many fans who actually prefer the band’s more refined live versions over their rather flat studio counterparts”. Rivadavia also claimed 10-minute antiwar “Forgotten Sons” to be the pinnacle of the album.

No singles from the album were released, but nevertheless Real to Reel managed to reach number 8 in the UK Albums Chart and linger there for 22 weeks. It was certified Gold by the BPI on 9 July 1985 for sales in excess of 100.000 copies.
Tracks 1–4 recorded at the Spectrum in Montreal, Canada on 19–20 June 1984
Tracks 5–7 recorded at De Montfort Hall in Leicester

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I was still in a full enjoyment of the band’s second album “Fugazi” when this album was released in 1984. I still remember how I was able to sing almost all Marillion’s lyrics on top of my head. “Emerald Lies” was my favorite at that time. I kept repeating this track over and over especially I like the dazzling percussion style and also Fish’s voice in a piece of lyrics ” …in a gallery of ….contempt!” – great man!

To my surprise the band released their first live album with excellent title “REAL to REEL”. So innovative! I love live albums because they reproduce the atmosphere of rock concert. Even the intro of “Assassing” with a background of audience’s hand clapping and shouting had set a “real” nuances. This track was performed much more dynamically than its original studio track. Marvellous!

The most interesting track for me is the song for peace and it’s called …”Forgotten Sons!” Wooowwwww ……!! So lively! So stunning! So great! Fish sung emotionally in this track and I know why he did that.

“Garden Party” and “Market Square Heroes” were performed seamlessly with great energy and serve the purpose of being the concert’s encore. Well, this album is as great as “Genesis Live”, “Yessongs”, “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends”, “Yesshows”. Rating 5/5 for sure. –

PEACE ON EARTH AND MERCY MILD, MOTHER BROWN HAS LOST HER CHILD JUST ANOTHER FORGOTTEN SONS!

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Fish era Marillion is a band that seems to glow even more as time goes by. Every time I hear their work of the 80´s it appears to be better than I thought before. Far from a Genesis clone they were a brilliant outfit that defied a decade that considered the whole progressive ethos as a dead, rotting corpse, to be heard only by maybe old hippies, nerds or losers. You had to be special to face such insalubrious environment and survive, let alone have success. And Marillion did just that.

Part of this success, I believe, was the fact that Marillion was primary a live band. They built their following with constant touring. Even though I appreciated their studio works very much, it was only when Real to Reel came out was I aware of how good they were. All the live tracks are, at least a little bit, superior to their originally recorded form. Some are too evident (Assassing, Incubus, Emerald Lies), but none as much as the single B-side Cinderella Search. This hymn to idealistic love, with its shifting moods and striking grand finale is filled with so much guts, feelings and beauty it makes you think the original version is a poor, incomplete demo. This track alone is worth the CD price.

But if you want to see how good they were at winning an audience you should listen to the last three songs: Forgotten Sons, Garden party and Market Square Heroes. Fish leads the band with the public at the palm of his hand. I remembered how I was amazed that a prog band – and a prog band in the 80´s! – could be so overwhelming powerful live. It makes you want to be there with the crowd singing with them the last song´s chorus at the top of your lungs!

Some people claim Real To Reel came a little too early (the band had released only two full albums by then). But it still stands as their best live record ever. A time when Marillion was a welcome sign to anyone who loved prog and felt alone in his musical taste. I loved it then, I love it now. Here you can have the band at its peak and before the international phenomenon they would become with the next release, the classic Misplaced Childhood.