The original audience for the 2nd wave of British Prog?

[dropforge]

Ozrix, Gamalon, Kenso, Iconoclasta, Tribal Tech, Solaris, Asturias, Univers Zero, L Subramaniam, Isildurs Bane, Edhels, Kazumi Watanabi, Minimum Vital, JP Boffo and Djam Karet to save Prog music during the 80s and early 90s.

I didn't learn of Kenso till after the '80s, but I listened to the other bands (in bold). DK and OT were on heavy rotation. I still listen to Edhels' Still Dream!

[dropforge]

Glad someone posted the live Sequences video...Twelfth Night at their finest

Yes! TN with Geoff Mann were amazing. I'm glad video exists, however limited. When Geoff left and they got Andy Sears, they ran out of gas pretty fast. He could sing the Mann songs but the music they wrote during Sears' time was pretty lame. And the guy after him...oof!

[rickawakeman]

Until after Fish left, Brief Encounter and The Thieving Magpie were my only exposure to live Marillion (aside from being at the shows) and those two albums in particular really don't translate just how energetic and vital the band was during that time. I only found out how much of a movement it was when I got into collecting the unofficial live albums, tapes and CDs. If you've heard/seen any of these you know what I'm talking about.

Based on that and those few I know that saw them in the early years was that people became fans of the band once they saw them regardless of musical classification.

Those early shows were just magical and I can't even imagine what it was like to have witnessed one of them in person. There was definitely a DIY/punk aesthetic to them.

I passed on the Early Stages box because I had amassed many a ROIO of early live Marillion, indeed high energy stuff. But while up in Montreal in Sept. for the Bryan Ferry show, I found the two disc "Early Stages Highlights" set at HMV (for 12.50!) and these shows, cleaned up as it were, sound stellar and capture some of the energy that must have been early live Marillion. The Sight and Sound show captures some of this visually as well.

[TheH]

I got into listening to Music at about the age of 15 or 16. Somehow I discovered very fast that the contempoary Music
didn't do much for me.

I discovered bands like Queen, Jethro Tull, ELP and Genesis all by pure chance (a story on ist own). I had absolutley
no idea that these bands had something in common other than that I liked them. There wasn't any kind of information
on this kind of music back then.

There was this guy who I learned for school with back than. He he was listening to all kind of strange synth pop like
"Divine" (a fat guy dressed as a woman), who said to me oh you listen to early Genesis, I have these Albums of
a band called Marillion who sound like Genesis. I didn't believe him so played them to me.

I was quite amazed an became a big fan, joined the German fan club and so on. There was also some coverage
in the press on Marillion, which where called a New Progressive Rock band (that term was absolutley new to me).
(and all those they Sound like this 70s band and that 70s band critics helped me finding new stuff)

So I had it all coming together now. I disovered a lot of the so called NWOBPR bands back then.

I saw all the shows of Marillion I could reach, which wasn't easy as I lived in a small village back then
and was to young to have a driving license. The guys and girls how went with me to the shows came from all sorts
of musical backgrounds (none of any Prog relation).

There where of course some guys with metal T's at the shows, but I think most of the audience seemed to pretty
average music fans with a very wide taste. I also remember the average audience to be rather young.

Most of the other NWOBPR bands never made it to Germany. I just recall a IQ show with Jadis which I coudn't reach.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Twelfth Night at their finest

The only then-"neo" band I still think quite highly of (along with the odd track by Solstice). The others I don't care for at all, from the "relatively tolerable" IQ to the absolutely horrible Quasar.

[WytchCrypt]

Yes! TN with Geoff Mann were amazing. I'm glad video exists, however limited. When Geoff left and they got Andy Sears, they ran out of gas pretty fast. He could sing the Mann songs but the music they wrote during Sears' time was pretty lame. And the guy after him...oof!

Ya, he could sing the parts but I couldn't stand Andy Sears stage presence...just awful, especially compared to Geoff.

For those who didn't know, Twelfth Night put out an extended 2CD version of "Live and Let Live" a couple years back and it is absolutely fantastic. One of my top live prog albums of all time. It includes missing tracks from the live Marquee show and a live version of their 20 minute epic "The Collector". Even "neo-prog" haters should at least give this album a try because Twelfth Night doesn't imitate any 70's prog band that came before, but were doing something unique and totally kick-ass

[mx20]

My first Marillion experience was (briefly) owning a live album on cassette. Don't remember what it was called, but I do recall it had "Punch & Judy" on it (the only tune I sorta liked). I remember perusing the audience photos inside the cassette cover & seeing a handmade poster: "Marillion- Best In All The World," or something to that effect. I was astonished! As a younger fan of First Wave Prog, here was a flagship Neo-Prog band who, in my estimation, swiped only the wrong tricks from the Prog play book! Where 70s Prog had actual emotion & actual craftsmanship, Marillion et al had only pale imitations on display, at least to my ears. That cassette went into a trash can not long afterward. I later owned a few of their studio LPs, but they just never connected with me. The music is uninteresting to me, the production loathsome, and those vocals/lyrics cringe inducing. I honestly believe that if Fish hasn't painted his face (ala Gabriel), we wouldn't be having this conversation on this forum.

Did Marillion tour the States prior to their opening slot with Rush?

[JKL2000]

I got into listening to Music at about the age of 15 or 16. Somehow I discovered very fast that the contempoary Music
didn't do much for me.

I discovered bands like Queen, Jethro Tull, ELP and Genesis all by pure chance (a story on ist own). I had absolutley
no idea that these bands had something in common other than that I liked them. There wasn't any kind of information
on this kind of music back then.

There was this guy who I learned for school with back than. He he was listening to all kind of strange synth pop like
"Divine" (a fat guy dressed as a woman), who said to me oh you listen to early Genesis, I have these Albums of
a band called Marillion who sound like Genesis. I didn't believe him so played them to me.

I was quite amazed an became a big fan, joined the German fan club and so on. There was also some coverage
in the press on Marillion, which where called a New Progressive Rock band (that term was absolutley new to me).
(and all those they Sound like this 70s band and that 70s band critics helped me finding new stuff)

So I had it all coming together now. I disovered a lot of the so called NWOBPR bands back then.

I saw all the shows of Marillion I could reach, which wasn't easy as I lived in a small village back then
and was to young to have a driving license. The guys and girls how went with me to the shows came from all sorts
of musical backgrounds (none of any Prog relation).

There where of course some guys with metal T's at the shows, but I think most of the audience seemed to pretty
average music fans with a very wide taste. I also remember the average audience to be rather young.

Most of the other NWOBPR bands never made it to Germany. I just recall a IQ show with Jadis which I coudn't reach.

Good story!

[spacefreak]

The only then-"neo" band I still think quite highly of (along with the odd track by Solstice). The others I don't care for at all, from the "relatively tolerable" IQ to the absolutely horrible Quasar.

Yes. Early TWELFTH NIGHT, the hippiest vibes from the SOLSTICE catalogue, plus MARILLION's "Script" and "Market Square Heroes" 12' are all I'm still revisiting from the british neoprog years.

[thedunno]

I was 16 when Script came out. I had never heard Genesis with Peter Gabriel at the time, nor KC, GG VDGG or classic Yes. So for me Marillion were something totally different then the stuff that was in the charts at the time. I liked them straight away. Then I discovered IQ, Pallas, Pendragon and Twelth Night and Rush. A few years later i started discovering 'the classics'.

To get really engaged in a band in your teens it is pretty essential that you can go them live regulary. At least Marillion, Pendragon and IQ were playing in the Netherlands on a regular basis. A few years later then I discovered Peter Hammill and cardiacs my interest in 'the second wave' bands started to decline pretty quickly.

[Nov]

Tommy Vance's Friday rock show was also important as that was often the first opportunity to hear releases and they also gave bands like pallas, iq and marillion sessions

Agreed.

The Tommy Vance show is where I first became aware of Marillion and I had their Radio 1 session on tape back in 81/82. There was a real buzz about the band primarily amongst young Genesis fans who had gotten into that band around the time of Second's Out but who were a bit disappointed with the way the band was going in the late 70s and early 80s. They wanted to experience the thrill that early Genesis fans had experienced in the early 70s with their own band and Marillion fitted the bill perfectly (for a while).

I used to receive their newsletter ("The Web") and the excitement around the time of the Grendel 12" single and the 1st album was quite intense. The first time I saw them was at The Marquee in 1982 (with Solstice supporting) and people were actually shouting out for "Genesis" like we were stuck in a time-warp. The gig was excellent.

I then saw them in 1983 at Guildford University (with Pendragon supporting) but by then I'd realised I was just fooling myself into trying to recreate an era from a decade earlier that Marillion just couldn't live up to.

At the time I was also receiving newsletters from Twelfth Night and The Lens (who became IQ) and trying my best to support the new prog movement but ultimately felt that these bands just weren't in the same league as the 70s originals. It wasn't until a few years later in the early 90s with the advent bands such as Anglagard, Spock's Beard and The Flower Kings that I felt that here was I whole batch of newer bands that really did have the musical skill to compete with the classic bands for my attention.

[Trace]

It all seemed more inclusive back in the very early 1980s. I was a rock fan (Genesis, Yes, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Budgie) and remember reading the jackets at the second Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington. The number that had both prog and metal bands included was numerous, because many fans just seemed to like ‘rock’ in many forms.
Not long after that, I ended up at college on the outskirts of London. After some gigs at the Hammersmith Odeon, a review of Trilogy (Rush-influence was the bit that got my attention) in Sounds got me trekking to my debut Marquee gig. They were supporting Twelfth Night, whose ‘Live At The Target’ album I already owned (it had been played on the BBC Friday Rock Show), so it should be a good gig, or so I thought. I arrived to find a queue, because somebody had decided to ram-raid the club (Why? – it was a black hole) and broken the door, so everything was delayed, to the extent that Trilogy couldn’t play, and everybody got the chance to see Twelfth Night doing their complete set-up, soundcheck and finally play. Obviously this was a completely different band from the album I had, and I was hooked. I met the lads from Trilogy and chatted about their bad luck in not being able to play. They mentioned a forthcoming four-band gig at the Lyceum (I think it was the Lyceum, I vaguely remember it including Pendragon, Solstice and Dagaband, but I may be wrong) which turned out to be another enjoyable show. Those two evenings set me off on a journey that continues today. I still like my heavy rock music, but that progressive rock, especially from the Neo-tagged early 1980’s, holds a special place in my heart.

[rickawakeman]

So the original UK/european audience for neo was comprised, from the great accounts from our brethren across the pond, of young fans who knew little of the original scene, as well as fans of the classic scene who were just jonesing for some Grendel.

[Valen]

For me, it was a combination of developments.

Listening to the NWOBHM and getting into rock generally while still at school, and being introduced by schoolmates to Rush and Genesis. (Cycling over to their homes to hook up my wee cassette player and record those hallowed LPs).

Spending summer 82 raiding the 2nd hand record stores and soaking up the likes of Yessongs, Seconds Out, Hawkwind, Saga, BOC etc.

Arriving at University, meeting similar minded folk and broadening my prog horizons further, just as Marillion and Pallas were making a name for themselves.

1983 was a prog watershed year for me, with the Script album being released and seeing the band on that tour, and then a couple of months later seeing Pallas perform embryonic versions of the songs that they were about to record for The Sentinel album, and then hearing Tommy Vance broadcasting the live Reading Rock sets from Twelfth Night, Marillion and Pallas.

All this against a background of positive press (at least in Kerrang), and Virgin reissuing a lot of its prog catalogue on cassette to coincide with the rise in interest, cue my shelf filling rapidly with cassettes by VDGG, Hackett, not to mention mail-order tapes from the bands themselves (I've still got my signed copy of the Arrive Alive cassette!)

And we had a student entertainments officer who knew some of these bands personally, so we got live shows from the likes of The Enid, IQ, Chasar. (Lol, they even put on a show by a new and unknown band called the Eurythmics days before they raced up the charts with their Sweet Dreams single!).

The live scene was much healthier back then, even in the north of Scotland, so a lot of rock and prog bands were able to tour well beyond the London scene.

Happy days!

[Trane]

Fortunately, there were Ozrix, Gamalon, Kenso, Iconoclasta, Tribal Tech, Solaris, Asturias, Univers Zero, L Subramaniam, Isildurs Bane, Edhels, Kazumi Watanabi, Minuimum Vital, JP Boffo and Djam Karet to save Prog music during the 80s and early 90s.

You're telling me you knew about most of these bands during the 80's

I mean, I think I discovered most of those in the mid-90's...

[JKL2000]

For me, it was a combination of developments.

Listening to the NWOBHM and getting into rock generally while still at school, and being introduced by schoolmates to Rush and Genesis. (Cycling over to their homes to hook up my wee cassette player and record those hallowed LPs).

Spending summer 82 raiding the 2nd hand record stores and soaking up the likes of Yessongs, Seconds Out, Hawkwind, Saga, BOC etc.

Arriving at University, meeting similar minded folk and broadening my prog horizons further, just as Marillion and Pallas were making a name for themselves.

1983 was a prog watershed year for me, with the Script album being released and seeing the band on that tour, and then a couple of months later seeing Pallas perform embryonic versions of the songs that they were about to record for The Sentinel album, and then hearing Tommy Vance broadcasting the live Reading Rock sets from Twelfth Night, Marillion and Pallas.

All this against a background of positive press (at least in Kerrang), and Virgin reissuing a lot of its prog catalogue on cassette to coincide with the rise in interest, cue my shelf filling rapidly with cassettes by VDGG, Hackett, not to mention mail-order tapes from the bands themselves (I've still got my signed copy of the Arrive Alive cassette!)

And we had a student entertainments officer who knew some of these bands personally, so we got live shows from the likes of The Enid, IQ, Chasar. (Lol, they even put on a show by a new and unknown band called the Eurythmics days before they raced up the charts with their Sweet Dreams single!).

The live scene was much healthier back then, even in the north of Scotland, so a lot of rock and prog bands were able to tour well beyond the London scene.

Happy days!

Never heard of Chasar.

[Valen]

Never heard of Chasar.

Rush influenced three piece from Scotland.

Like so many bands of that era, they only produced one cassette album, and performed a session for broadcasting on the Radio 1 Friday Rock Show.

http://www.glasband80.co.uk/new_site/Chasar.html

[moecurlythanu]

Chasar had their material released on LP in Belgium and the USA , albeit with different titles.
More Heavy Metal than Prog, imo.

[Valen]

Chasar had their material released on LP in Belgium and the USA , albeit with different titles.
More Heavy Metal than Prog, imo.

Fair point, but the three 'epic' tracks that they wrote (Kings, Underground, Visions of Time) were the ones that got them the Rock Show session, and were the ones which fans enjoyed best live. And the fact that they went down well with the prog crowd when supporting Pallas gives them some prog-credibility.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

You're telling me you knew about most of these bands during the 80's

I mean, I think I discovered most of those in the mid-90's...

I was introduced to and bought albums by most of them in 1989 after Punk/New Wave died

[everyday]

I was born in 1961 so was too young for the original era. My brother introduced me to prog but the first LPs I bought were later ones by established groups such as Procol Harum's Something Magic, Yes's Drama, Moody Blues Long Distance Voyager. I used to read Sounds and listen to Tommy Vance Friday Rock Show (still got my tape of As Above So Below in session - they should have been massive!). I saw Pallas and Marillion in Hull where I lived, and occasionally went to London to see bands at The Marquee such as Twelfth Night and Pendragon. I remember ordering Pallas's Paris is Burning 12" single from my local shop, buying Market Square Heroes when it came out and bought tapes from groups such as Gothique, Janysium, Liaison and albums such as Airbridge's Paradise Moves.

Fav albums from that period: IQ - tales from the lush attic; Twelfth Night - Fact and Fiction; Marillion - Script.

[TheH]

Chasar where really more Metal but could be put in the same drawer as bands like Kooga, Omega or Demon

[glawster2002]

The audience for the second wave of British Prog were the rock fans.

When I was at school in the late 1970s the cousin of one of my friends had just started a band called Zeus Pendragon, later shortened to Pendragon. My friend's cousin was Pete Gee. So I first saw them in @ 1978.

At that time they were just another band, along with the likes of AC/DC and UFO, etc. The idea of "neo-prog" didn't exist. Bands like Marillion, Pallas, Twelfth Night, etc, were regularly featured on Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show and in the weekly music paper Sounds. Kerrang!! was an off-shoot of Sounds originally intended as a one off about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Bands like Marillion were included in that. You were equally as likely to see someone in a Motörhead t-shirt at a Marillion gig as vice versa. It wasn't a big deal back then.