With all the interest that had been generated in them over the last two years and the live versions of various tracks that had appeared as the B-sides of singles, it was not that surprising that Marillion would come out with a live album, but I think personally they missed a trick. This gives all the impression of having been rushed out with not too much thought given to the tracklisting, as I'll explain.
Real to reel (1984) produced by Marillion and Simon Hanhart on the EMI label (Capitol in the USA)
I remember I had this on cassette tape, and I was so underwhelmed with it that I never bothered to get it on vinyl, nor did I update it when CDs arrived as I did all my other Marillion albums. Apart from the clever wordplay in the title, there's not a whole lot to recommend this album to any true Marillion fan, apart from its place in history as the first live Marillion album and being one of only two that featured Fish on vocals prior to his departure in 1987. It's material taken from two shows, one in Canada and one in Leicester during what one would assume must have been the "Fugazi" tour.
There are two songs each from "Script" (though not the title track, amazingly) and "Fugazi" (three, if you bought the cassette or later CD version), one B-side and the immortal debut single. Yeah. Not a whole lot to get excited about, methought when I first saw the track listing, and me continues to think now. I really feel that Marillion should have resisted perhaps the label's pressure to get some live stuff out there until they had a third album, or at least gathered together the material for a proper live album with more than just six songs (seven, on CD and tape): they had after all already pushed their fanbase by doing this twice on their studio albums.
I'll be perfectly honest: even after all this time I can't review this album because I have never listened to it all the way through. The content just puts me off, and I felt cheated, even buying the tape, that they hadn't put more thought into it. But for what there is of it I'll quickly go through the listing.
1. Assassing (7:29) --- An appropriate enough song to start on, both given the dramatic, eerie introduction and the fact that it was a single, not to mention that at that time it would still have been in most people's minds as the first song they heard when they put on the new album. It's marginally longer than the studio version, but we're talking seconds here. Good start, but then...
2. Incubus (8:43) --- A good song from "Fugazi" but why not take the title track? Or the sinuous, reptilian "She chameleon", not my favourite track on the album but I think it could have worked really well in a live setting. Again a longer version but again only by ten seconds or so. I guess the crowd enjoyed it, especially shouting the phrase "Just like a greasepaint mask". Oh, we fans!
3. Cinderella search (5:45) --- For once a good choice, as this track was only available on the B-side of the "Assassing" single, and is in fact good enough in my opinion to have made it onto "Fugazi" itself. In later reissues of course it was there, but by then it was well known. Good punchy ending and again the crowd must have enjoyed screaming "Welcome --- back to the circus!"
4. Emerald lies (5:28) (Tape/CD only) --- Ah, one of my favourites! Glad at the time I bought the tape, even if I didn't listen to it. Never been terribly big into live albums if I'm honest. Again an extra twenty seconds, but I did get to see Marillion perform this in 1984 in the Hammersmith Odeon, with the new album back at my hotel in a bag and never having listened to a track, so I know how powerful he could make this in a live setting. Should have been on all versions.
5. Forgotten sons (10:36) --- Now we're talking! A whole extra two minutes almost, allowing Fish the chance to engage in those stage theatrics he became so famous for. Couldn't really see any live Marillion album without this on it, but I would have kept it to the end. Showstopping in every sense of the word, and a real parable for the times.
6. Garden party (6:32) --- Never one of my favourite tracks off "Script", but given that it had been a single I guess they felt it needed to be included. Plus of course it gave the big Scot the chance to use the line "Oh what a crowd!" Not to mention the fans surely had fun singing, with unabashed gusto and delight, "I'm rocking, I'm
FUCKING!" Yup: can't censor a live show, Mister BBC!
7. Market square heroes (7:32) --- Yeah I guess it was always going to be there, but you know, as much as I love this song I think even at this point, with all the different versions we'd had of it I was getting just a wee bit tired of Marillion's debut single, and quite frankly, a seven-minute-plus version I could do without.
So as a first venture onto vinyl for Marillion in a live setting, to be honest I think I was happier with the bog-quality bootleg tapes I was buying aat the time from various dodgy geezers on O'Connell Street. At least on those, despite the crappy sound, you were getting a full concert. This just felt a little too stripped-down, a little too sanitised, a little too record label. Reminds me of that line from "Welcome to the machine" --- "You gotta get an album out, you owe it to the people!" Yeah, but they owed us better than this.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony of putting something down which I haven't even listened to, but I think I'm enough of an authority on this band by this time to know that listening to "Reel to real", even after all this time, is unlikely to blow my mind. Not really a case of too much, too soon or even too little, too late. More like too little, too soon.