FISH (Live)

at The City Hall, Newcastle, U.K., March 6, 2025

It’s hard to believe that it was 41 years ago that FISH made his first appearance at Newcastle City Hall as frontman with Marillion on the Fugazi Tour so it is rather fitting that his final show in England comes on that very stage.

The Road To The Isles Tour is Fish’s farewell to the music business. After his final two shows up in Glasgow he will head up to Berneray to start a peaceful life as a crofter rearing sheep and growing crops – a far cry from life as a rock star.

But first, this tour is his final chance to say goodbye and celebrate his 35 year career as a solo artist whilst also looking back to his days with Marillion and what a way to go out. 2 hours 40 minutes with no interval, no solos and no excess fluff, just 100% music peppered by some of Fish’s legendary witty repartee to add to the wonderfully intimate atmosphere.

With a set drawing heavily on his classic first solo album, Vigil In A Wilderness of Mirrors including “Family Business”, “Big Wedge” and a brilliant “Cliche”, along with a few from his more recent albums including the title tracks to Weltschmerz and A Feast Of Consequences, his show covered a lot of musical ground.

The 20 minute epic “Plague of Ghosts” formed the centre piece to the night while “Kayleigh”, “Lavender” and “Heart of Lothian” from Marillion’s Number One Misplaced Childhood album delivered the hits.

Yet it was the closing duo of the dramatic “Fugazi” and the deeply emotional “The Company” which brought down the curtain on an incredible career in his final show on English soil in emphatic style replete with Fish indulging in some Scottish dancing while the crowd pirouetted like ballerinas. What an atmosphere. What a night and what a fitting farewell from the Big Man himself.

Author

Mick Burgess
Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell! Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.
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