Music / Reviews
Review: Fish, Fleece
Mercurial, charismatic and occasionally insufferable, Fish sure knows how to test his audience. Will we get the witty, charming raconteur or the grumpy, soapboxing old bugger sharing his many woes again? Frankly, the signs weren’t good. Originally set for May, this tour was postponed when guitarist Robin Boult contracted chicken pox. Then the big man himself went down with some kind of virus a couple of weeks back, causing the cancellation of several European dates. “Guns n’ Roses keep you waiting for four hours,” he smirks on taking the stage. “Fish keeps you waiting for six months.”
Yup, he’s in a remarkably cheery mood, perhaps buoyed by the fact that the packed crowd is considerably larger than the one he pulled at his previous Bristol gig. He’s in good voice too, with no sign of the anticipated croakiness, and backed by one of the strongest bands he’s toured with in years. Much of the set is dominated by the return-to-form A Feast of Consequences album, though he dips back into 13th Star for Arc of the Curve and the pleasingly heavy Manchmal. The centrepiece is the epic High Wood Suite, inspired by his grandfather’s experiences in the trenches during WWI. It’s typical Fish – complex, ambitious and unnecessarily wordy in places, but performed with a passion that steamrollers any misgivings. Even his lengthy introduction is received in reverential silence by an audience that occasionally feels like members of a religious cult paying obeisance at their master’s feet.
Mercifully, Fish does much to dispel this notion, grumbling amusingly about his decaying 56-year-old body and leaving his unfortunate teenage daughter Tara with her head in her hands on the merch stand as he reveals how she once sent one of his ex-lovers packing with the words: “You were the worst lay my dad ever had!” Then it’s into the back catalogue in reverse chronological order with the punchy, Peter Gabriel-esque Big Wedge; the excessively verbose Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors, during which he goes walkabout among his flock; and that huge, hearty, singalong anthem from Marillion’s Misplaced Childhood, Heart of Lothian. The inevitable shout for Grendel (very old in-joke, without which no Fish gig would be complete) greets his return for the loudly demanded encore. Instead, he revives Incubus from Fugazi, which proves a welcome surprise – as indeed does the creaky old greybeard’s unexpected jolliness in the face of adversity.
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