News - 16/07/2010 - BBQ-ing Brabant-Style
This isn't meant as a call to action, but we're always happy to be with lovely people. An enjoyable barbecue in a place we know in St. Hubert, chez Johan and Silvia. And loads of familiar faces - the ones who always come and see us gig. Friends, then! The name "Lords of the Backstage" suggested that we might come for a gig, but that wasn't exactly the plan - we came for a barbecue and maybe... And then only (semi-)acoustic.
"Lords of the Backstage" became "Lords of the BBQ"!
Against us was that Henri had other commitments that evening, but Rich 2 was up for it. Rich 2 has recently stepped into the LOTB fold. He helps us with the vocals at practice, when Rich 1 can't be there (he now lives back in the UK), but he does a lot more too. He gives feedback, can play bass, is a great chap, sings well (in a Haagse style) and... can bash out a good rhythm. Rich 2 was also Peter's chauffeur. Peter, who after an unfortunate occurrence on the handball field, realised that his knees had a better grip on the physical reality of his age than he himself. To put it succinctly, he had difficulty walking and would rather sit on a stool. The solution was simple: one bale of hay for him to sit upon.
Dennis' family came too and stayed on the campsite, while the rest of LotBBQ (behalve Rich 1) had to go home after the excesses of Gert-Jan's saté.
So, we were there then; what were we going to play? Peter and Dennis had hatched a very mean plan: LotBBQ isn't LoTB, so, no Marillion :) :) Well, you know how it goes; okay, then, we'll play some Marillion...
I really don't think we have a clue exactly what we played; three sets, anyway, but it was obvious that we'd kept a little surprise for the edn - Garden Party! Well, just perfect for it - in the garden, massacreing cucumbers with Marillion fans!
We played with no drums, a lovely fretless bass, softly strummed guitar (no, really!), just piano and of course, vocals! I think we played all the numbers below, in some order or another... maybe we've forgotten something... oh, well, we've done our best to remember...
Diversen:
Bloed zweet en Tranen (Hazes) (featuring Gert-Jan)
Oh Oh Den haag (Harrie van Klorkenstein) (zang: Rich2)
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
Raingods Dancing / Wake-up call (Fish)
Je Loog Tegen Mij (Drukwerk) (featuring Gert-Jan)
Someone Somewhere in Summertime (Simple Minds)
Big Sleep (Simple Minds)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
Marillion:
Kayleigh
Lavender
Bitter Suite
Heart of Lothian
Curtain Call
3 Minute Boy
The Bell in the Sea
Warm Wet Circles
That Time of the Night
100 Nights
Chelsea Monday
Blind Curve
Childhoods End?
Sugar Mice
Cinderella Search
Hooks in You
Garden Party
Market Square Heroes
Something a bit different then - no, we love Marillion, but this was great fun to do! A lovely group of people who do lovely things with each other (are you sure about this bit, Dennis??). Everyone respecting and enjoying life. Special thanks to the host and hostess: A BIG THANK YOU!
P.S. If we learn Manuela, can we come again?
News - 17/05/2010 - April 17th - Hippo Studio Amsterdam
Unbelievable - a gig where absolutely ZERO promotion effort was made by the promoter/venue. Could be interesting... ;-) The venue wants to remain underground, that's why... The Marillion-fanbase (or can we say "LOTB-fanbase"?) was drummed up to eat, to come and see us and then back to their hotels.
Arriving at the hall, there was a 4 * 3 metre stage - full of the equipment of a DJ out of the Seventies! Well, we couldn't have got on next to it. After asking the gentleman if he thought he'd booked Jedward or something, we brought our 30-odd flight cases in, and the bloke started himself to break down and move his lovely DJ booth so that we'd actually have some room - he took the hint. The stage was small - too small: Peter couldn't fit on. Henri and Dennis played trapped behind their equipment! If there'd been a fire, we probably wouldn't exist as a band any more, 'cos the drummer and keyboard player would have been burnt to a crisp, without a chance of escape...
No soundcheck either today... We ran through Incubus, with a couple of breaks, and a bit of knob-twiddling. Not really sufficient! And the audience were already in... shame.
You can trust on us to throw in some new tracks - Assassing this time, introduced with Bridge, plus Runaway and Between You and Me. They all went well! Bridge was a complete surprise. People held their breath and hoped for more of Brave. When Bridge morphed gradually into Assassing, they were just as pleasantly surprised. The audience was great!
In the mid-set break, there was a sort of TV interview for a local station, with Rich and Dennis. The presenter had done some homework (too well!) and began with very detailed questions about lyrics, along the lines of: "This passage in this song (e.g. the 'Message of love' section from King), what's that about?". Dennis hoped that he wouldn't have to answer this one, but Rich stepped in and explained in some depth the meaning of the lyrics. The chap came up for air and steered the questions elsewhere... :)
The second set was fun, with a lot of Misplaced Childhood and also Runaway. And the crowd-pleasers also arrived in good time. Sugar Mice wasn't on the setlist, but this HAD to be played for this audience. Had to happen. Between You and Me was definitely one where people went, "Wow, didn't expect that!". Always a shame, but one has to stop some time, even if the audience reckons you ought to go on for at least another hour. Afterwards it was noted that we hadn't played, amongst others, Script, Incubus, the Clutching Trilogy, No One Can, Neverland - but that it was still great...
Look, you HAVE to make choices, or you can't play any new material or the gig has to be six hours long! We don't want to put anyone - including ourselves - through that :)
The DJ took over the party - and very well - except he was using one of Dennis' extension leads - and Dennis did really want to go home at some point before the sun came up!...
It was very difficult to make the chap understand that he only needed to switch his equipment off for a second, so we could plug his kit straight into the wall and finally get to go home. Suddenly he upped and just pulled all of his plugs out, leaving the needles to grind to a halt in the grooves of his old LPs. He told us to stop moping and soon the power was back on again. The records started to spin again and the beat picked up. The audience overcame the slight hiccup and danced on...
Setlist:
Bridge
Assassing
Cinderella Search
3 Boats
Jigsaw
LOTB - Blind Curve - Childhood's End?
Fantastic Place
King
---
Pseudo-Silk Kimono - Kayleigh - Lavender - Bitter Suite - Heart of Lothian - Curtain Call
Runaway
The Great Escape
This Town - The Rakes Progress - 100 Nights
Chelsea Monday
Slainte Mhath
Sugar Mice (niet op de setlist)
Fugazi
---
Between You and Me
Hooks in You
Market Square Heroes
News - 21/09/2009 - September 5th - 25 Years Kissing in Sint Hubert
As long ago as last year's gig in Tilburg, we were invited to come and play at Johan and Sylvia's party. True Marillion fans… How could we refuse? Well, actually we had to move heaven and earth to be able to do it, as on the very same day band members had both work and family commitments. But in the end it was worth the effort. It was wonderful to play in Sint Hubert - the name of this huge city. In a field, where donkeys and horses would normally have been roaming, a good sized marquee had been erected - not too big, but filled with 85 guests. We'd asked up front if the couple had any special requests - they'd made a top ten of which we only played three; we scented a challenge! They particularly hankered after hearing Fantastic Place, because of the emotional significance it had for them. (Note: Fantastic Place is not exactly a doddle to play well!)
We already had plans to widen the repertoire, so we decided to set about incorporating the list of ten. We thought it would be lovely to put in a number from Uncle Fish, and so we decided on... Cliche (if you know it, you know why).
Although Rich now lives in Wales, of course he came over once, well in advance of the gig, for us to practice. Many of you will understand that that's really not enough for this music, but needs must.
At the gig the band were looked after really well (thanks!), with a lovely Chinese meal and loads of room to set up. The stage was rickety, but big enough, maybe a bit dark, but good enough for us, when all of the party lighting was taken into account - including a two metre double ultra-violet strip light! :)
At 8PM the guests started to trickle in, just as we finished soundchecking. At a quarter past nine, we started. The room was kind of split into two groups - the Marillo-fans right in front of us and the non-Marillos clustered a little quieter to the side of us. After the intro and Script followed a good 3 Boats, which led to a very special number for Johan and Sylvia - "No One Can" - they'd had made up "No One Can" lighters and given them out to everyone :)
Misplaced Childhood Side 1 - normally we start this from Lavender, but they'd asked specially for Kayleigh, given that that's what they'd named their daughter. After side one, why not side two? From Lords of the Backstage, via Blind Curve to Childhood's End? ...And all of this still in the first set! To make it even "worse" we also threw in Hotel Hobbies – Warm Wet Circles – That time of the Night. Yep, we were well busy :)
In the break, we had to sort some technical problems. There was a lot of feedback in the monitors. Dennis couldn't even hear his own high notes, so we had a bit of re-arranging to do.
The second set was anything but old hat, mixing some old stalwarts with a raft of new tracks. Slainte Mhath, Sugar Mice, Forgotten Sons, The Last Straw are old favourites that always deserve their place. A lovely moment was King. The end of King builds up and up and up and then is suddenly gone. Some people were totally entranced, with closed eyes. Completely out of this world! This went really well and gave us a great feeling. Big props to Richard, our soundman, who knew exactly how to pull this off - tops!
In the second set there were also new numbers - in short, a bit exciting! Afraid of Sunlight came straight out of the box and we were really pleased with it!! Fantastic Place was spot on and some of the audience watched open-mouthed. Wow! it's not a number that just any band can play. Our gift, "Cliche" ("A love song" from Fish) got stretched a bit due to an unexpected solo, but luckily we got it back on track, with grins all round. The room expressed its desire to hear Kayleigh once again, but hushed as soon as Dennis began the intro to Fugazi.
Dennis and Rich then wheeled out another special track, a vocal and piano version of the first half of Three Minute Boy, which seemlessly turned into the opening of Neverland. Judging by the faces, this was definitely appreciated! This should have been the end of the show, but we couldn't ignore the calls for a reprise of Kayleigh. The dancing was great, but when the band also threw in Market Square Heroes for good measure, this changed to jumping! And then, after a very long gig, it was over. Henri and Dennis had cramp and Rich's voice was also glad to finally get a rest.
After the gig we laughed ourselves silly at Margriet, Monique and a slightly worse for wear Gert-Jan's karaoke version of Manuela :) This was quickly taken over by Brabanders, who made a sort of performance from it - and some of them couldn't hold a steady step any more, let alone a tune! Great!!!
A really fun evening - thanks for everything!
Setlist:
Intro: La Gazza Ladra
Script for a Jesters Tear
3 Boats Down from the Candy
No One Can
Pseudo-Silk Kimono
Kayleigh
Lavender
Blue Angel
Heart of Lothian
Curtain Call
Lords of the Backstage
Blind Curve
Childhoods End?
Hotel Hobbies
Warm Wet Circles
That Time of the Night
Intro: Bolke de Beer
Slainte M'Hath
Afraid of Sunlight
The Great Escape
Fantastic Place
King
Sugar Mice
This Town
The Rakes Progress
100 Nights
The Last Straw
Forgotten Sons
Cliche
Fugazi
3 Minute Boy
Neverland
Kayleigh (Reprise)
Market Square Heroes
News - 16/04/2009 - 19th March, The Waterhole, Amsterdam - Pre-Marillion Convention Gig
WOW!!!
This special gig was a reason for us to do something extra. What then? PLAY THE BEST NUMBERS PLUS SURPRISES FOR A VERY LONG TIME! Chance enough, but this gig would turn out very special. Expectant, but above all enthusiastic and happy fans from all over the world. The Waterhole were open to our ideas again, that was again obvious from the staff attitude - big smiles and not a little disbelief... Happy, enrapt people singing along with tracks they didn't recognise.
One thing was for sure: Kayleigh was taboo! We had absolutely no intention of playing this whatsoever. But what should we play? Well, that's easy: we'll take everything we've got (5 hours of material)... and then throw a few things out until we're left with about three hours' worth - pretty damn long for a gig.
The biggest surprise would be Emerald Lies, that we'd only practiced once... And the three acoustic numbers would also turn out well...
La Gazza Ladra was programmed into the sampler, along with a few nice, old childrens' songs, such as "Berenboot" and "Bolke de Beer". Dennis, who was there early and felt a bit coldy sorted himself out by getting Rich to roll him a joint and then it was eventually showtime!
La Gazza Ladra rung out from the sampler... of course this had to be followed by Slainte M'Hath. The crowd went mad! The English in particular came to the fore and let themselves be heard. Cinderella Search came immediately after and proceeded apace. The public roared "Welcome back to the Circus"... After Chelsea Monday came the first "special number": 3 Boats. This has become known amongst some of the Brits as the "The New Grendel" and it was enthusiastically welcomed and received ;-)
Unfortunately we were also getting to know the decibel meter, which is not to be trifled with as it cuts the current for 30 seconds. At 105db a red lamp signals a warning; 107db trips the power... Aaargh! (Four times Aaargh!) The keyboards in particular don't like this at all because a) it's not good for the equipment and b) everything has to be reprogrammed. After Punch & Judy and Incubus came a sweet version of Lords of the Backstage, Blind Curve and a twin-vocal Childhoods End?, which brought the first set to a close.
The second set was a bit special. Three acoustic numbers and a couple of showstoppers. It began with Script. Rich turned the mic to the audience and the first minute was piano and choir. There followed a good version of He knows You Know, leading to the acoustic section of A Collection, Memory of Water and Bell in the Sea. TO be honest, we expected a bit more of a response to these three, but it was obvious, this evening's audience wanted just one thing: showstoppers!
Well, that's what they got! After The Great Escape came Rites of Passage - Lavender - Blue Angel - Misplaced Rendezvous - Heart of Lothian and then King. That seemed to be just the ticket!!! This was really enjoyable to play, in particular Misplaced Rendezvous, that we'd only done once before, gave us goosebumps. THIS is the power of music; THIS is the Marillion feeling. It's something you just can't explain...
The third and last set consisted entirely of blockbusters... Well... hopefully WITH our sound engineers... they were a bit busy with peeing and smoking... we couldn't do much without them but we cheekily took the opportunity to drop in "Grendel"; well, it had to make an appearance, even if it wasn't on the setlist...
Eventually the sound guys came back... We kicked off with the first two verses of She Chameleon, followed by This Town, The Rakes Progress and 100 Nights and closed the medley with the last verse of She Chameleon. Surprisingly fun, even if the key of the last verse of She Chameleon has to be tweaked to make it come out of 100 Nights properly. So it becomes F#-Chameleon in place of SHE Chameleon (Note: this is a musician's joke and even then it only works in Dutch!!! And the bitch of a decibel limiter totalled the end of 100 Nights anyway :( )...
Jigsaw was well received and also Emerald Lies, although we didn't think we played it too well - kind of not too surprising having only practiced it once... But we wanted to play it - no-one else plays it, including the other tribute bands, as far as we know...
When the first notes of Hotel Hobbies rang out, some of the audience went absolutely nuts. Yeah, we rather liked that! They sung along with absolutely every word from the beginning of Warm Wet Circles until the last note of That Time of The Night. Not bad - it's not an easy lyric.
The end of the gig started to hove into view and we played Sugar Mice. The audience sang and Rich could take a break. Ivo played a blinding solo that was enthusiastically received by the audience who came back into song for the final verse. After The Last Straw they were clamouring for Fugazi... nope... (not yet). Forgotten Sons was still on the list... No-one seemed to mind :-) Even the ending worked... wow!
Well then, Fugazi it is, and had to be... It's so great to see that people gain such pleasure from the old Marillion numbers. People sang, made silly faces, Freaked out, laughed, smiled, made Fish-style movements (been watching too many videos? :-) ) Really brilliant to see. The evening could only be finished off with one number. And, of course, we played it...
After about four (!) hours playing that was our lot. Everyone had a great evening. The Waterhole was happy, the band had played well and the audience went off for a quiet weekend, or a brilliant "once in a lifetime" weekend with their band that soundtracks their lives. For us, Marillion is a feeling, a life, where we are so happy to be able to play the music, that lends those lives an extra dimension. An unforgettable evening. We hope that we could bring something extra to the Marillion Weekend. There are already videos and photos online.
A BIG Thank You from The Lords of the Backstage
P.S.: Do you have photos, videos or other material from the evening? Send them over via the website! We'd also be pleased to receive photos of people wearing our shirts at real Marillion gigs :D
Setlist:
Intro: La Gazza Ladra
Slainte M'Hath
Cinderella Search
Chelsea Monday
3 Boats Down from the Candy
Punch & Judy
Incubus
Lords of the Backstage
Blind Curve
Childhoods End?
Script for a Jesters Tear
He knows you know
A Collection
Memory of Water
Bell in the Sea (Bass/Vox)
The Great Escape
Rites of Passage
Lavender
Blue Angel
Heart of Lothian
Curtain Call
King
She Chameleon (Start)
This Town
The Rakes Progress
100 Nights
She Chameleon (End)
Jigsaw
Emerald Lies
Hotel Hobbies
Warm Wet Circles
That Time of the Night
Sugar Mice
The Last Straw
Forgotten Sons
Fugazi
Market Square Heroes
Once again, to everyone who came THANK YOU VERY MUCH, IT WAS BRILLIANT FUN!!!
News - 11/01/2009 - Gigging in De Boerderij in Zoetermeer, 08/01/09
Enjoyable but "different" gig in De Boerderij in Zoetermeer.
Best wishes to everyone for 2009!
How was it going to go? A new year's gig on Thursday evening. We didn't expect too many people. Well, 40 people or so came. A number who we've known for a while, such as Wilco, Geert-Jan, Nieko, Moos en Janke. But also Nanda, Ton and Elga, Piet and a few old friends came along too.
It was also great to see people who we didn't know at all, who'd come along having seen De Boerderij's publicity. De Boerderij is a really well organised place, with a great sound, good equipment, excellent and experienced people. Top marks and many thanks to De Boerderij!
We'd only been able to practice once with Rich, no more, no less, which makes it difficult because we wanted to play some new numbers. It's always a bit of a dilemma - choose the most popular numbers or do something that no-one would expect? We chose both :) We also wanted to have a setlist that was evenly weighted in terms of Fish and h numbers. In practice for us this meant playing more h-numbers.
The choice is so huge that we also had the chance to play less well-known numbers. Along with the well-known Waiting To happen, No-One Can and The Great Escape, we also chose to play A Collection, the bass and vocal version of The Bell in the Sea and the quiet, original version of Memory of Water. The last two numbers were very well received and very rarely played by Marillion - Memory of Water has only ever been played in its original form once, at the Convention in 2007. During Memory of Water, where there are many silent moments, you could honestly have heard a pin drop and it was amazing to see diehard fans standing or sitting with open mouths!
After the first two numbers, the gig came to an abrupt stop, because keyboard player Dennis became dizzy... He'd worked all day and then driven straight home, loaded his gear and gone direct to the gig and had had little or nothing to drink or eat in the meantime. After a cola, a banana and some nuts the worst was over. "The show must go on" - which was fortunate, because the second set was really special, with some impromptu encores including, as the closer, a sing/dance-along Grendel, which Peter, Henri and the audience decided to take further than where we usually stop! One problem: the rest of the band had never played it!! Didn't spoil the enjoyment :)
Setlist:
Script
Cinderella Search
Jigsaw (cut)
The Bell in the Sea (bass/vox)
A Collection
Jigsaw
Punch & Judy
Rites of Passage / Lavender / Blue Angel / Misplaced Rendezvous / Windswept Thumb / Heart of Lothian / Curtain Call
Incubus
No-One Can
The Memory of Water
She Chameleon / This Town / The Rakes Progress / 100 Nights
Waiting to Happen
The Great Escape
King
Forgotten Sons
Sugar Mice
Grendel Fun
News - 02/12/2008 - Tilburg in the Snow, 23/11/08
Even though no-one was really expecting snow (speak for yourself, Dennis; MetCheck had been forecasting exactly what happened - snow, thaw, more snow Monday morning - for days), it was absolutely beautiful outside. Maybe it was a little less pretty inside but it was certainly hospitable and fun!
Cafe Bolle was packed with Marillion fans who were going to 013 that evening and catching the Lords on the way. Some were seeing us for the first time, others we were happy to see back again!
Of course to please return punters, sometimes we need to shake the set up a bit, bringing in some rarely played tracks or numbers that we've never tried ourselves before. This is a big undertaking which we assume with much pleasure and energy but which is also complicated by Rich now living back in England - so he can't make rehearsals and Dennis has to take partial responsibility for providing the others with vocals to cue from :)
Rich also sang the previous afternoon in Glasgow with Forgotten Sons and was very pleased to make it on time. The Cafe Bolle stage had a fair bit of room, so what could go wrong? Despite the fact that Ivo had terrible problems with feedback (even with his amp almost on 0), meaning he had to spend the entire gig riding his volume pedal - thanks also to Richard our great sound engineer!) and Dennis didn't hear a note of guitar all gig, we had a great time.
With a bit of time pressure, we played everything we'd intended but in one go, instead of two sets, with the exception of the "Clutching trilogy" (Hotel Hobbies, Warm Wet Circles, That Time of the Night) because one of Dennis' sustain pedals had given up the ghost and it's really necessary for those tracks. At the behest of the Cafe, we also put Pseudo Silk Kimono, Kayleigh and Lavender in the setlist; we don't really massively enjoy playing Kayleigh, mainly because there are other tracks we could use the time for - originally in place of Pseudo and Kayleigh in the setlist was an intro using Fish's Rites of Passage. Maybe next time?
It was a lovely late afternoon / early evening as we got to chat to friends old and new, with a few enthusiastic Norwegians added to the mainly Dutch mix, saw some surprised faces when we played 100 nights and King and a lot of smiling ones throughout; many thanks for all of your compliments.
A question for the band's fans (seeing us just once counts too :) ... Which Marillion or Fish numbers would you like to see us add to the repertoire?
Setlist:
Intro (La Gazza Ladra)
Slainte Mhath
Cinderella Search
Three Boats Down from the Candy
He Knows You Know
Chelsea Monday
Pseudo-Silk Kimono / Kayleigh / Lavender / Blue Angel
Incubus
Lords of the Backstage / Blind Curve / Childhoods End?
This Town / The Rakes Progress / 100 Nights
Sugar Mice
The Last Straw
King
Fugazi
Hooks In You / Market Square Heroes
News - 20/10/2008 - Grillness Is The Road, Swifterbant, 28/09/08
(Yes, it was indeed three weeks ago - sorry! Rich.)
A pleasant Sunday afternoon, a lovely garden, tasty meat and great people. A top combination. The barbecue was in keyboard player, Dennis' garden. The atmosphere was relaxed and of course the soundcheck was Garden Party. We won't dwell on the quality of that but there was certainly lots of laughing. We'd decided to play two short sets, as we also wanted to have time for something to eat and to chat with people. Hey, it was a barbecue!
The setlist was as follows:
Slainte Mhath
Cinderella Search
Three boats down from the Candy
Rites of Passage / Lavender / Blue Angel
Chelsea Monday
Raingods Dancing / Wake-up Call
Hotel Hobbies / Warm Wet Circles / That time of the night
Jigsaw
Incubus
Sugar Mice
The last Straw
Grendel (boogie version)
Kayleigh (unplanned)
Lavender (unplanned)
Blue Angel (unplanned)
Misplaced Rendez-vous (unplanned)
Windswept Thumb (unplanned)
Heart of Lothian (unplanned)
We had a great, relaxed time, running through the numbers under the sun. After such a long time since the last time we played, obviously some things went better than others (!) but it was great fun. After the Grendel boogie (!!) (Grendel, but in a bluesy boogie stylee) it was supposed to be over; but people still wanted more and with a little pestering we played Kayleigh, which we can't believe anyone enjoyed - I mean, it's Kayleigh, no?! - well, that was okay and during the number Peter (bass) and Dennis (keys) decidede to pester Rich a bit more and go into Lavender, so that Blue Angel would go better this time (!) - in for a penny in for a pound... Ha! Hoist with your own petard! Ivo (guitar) went from blue Angel into Misplaced Rendezvous... Ho!! We've never played this before!! Not even at practice! Well, we couldn't go back so on we went up to and including Heart of Lothian. And then it really *was* time for a hamburger...
We'd like to thank everyone for making it a great afternoon. Special thanks to Moniek and Niek, Christa and Anton, Gert-Jan and Ries (sound)! You all know what for!
Same time next year!
News - 25/03/2008 - Lords in The Waterhole, Amsterdam, 22/03/08
If you're called Lords of the Backstage and also end up playing somewhere called The Waterhole, this can only bode well. Fish was going to play Paradiso that night and we could give fans the opportunity for a good warm-up - and in return we get a large, enthusiastic crowd!
We played the gig using The Waterhole's own P.A., much against our own preference - we'd far rather have full control over the sound. Unforunately with this sort of music that naturally meant the sound wasn't all it could have been, particularly early on, so sorry about that.
We doctored the setlist a bit from our usual - we didn't want to play Clutching material that Fish was going to play later and, because the audience would likely be Fish era and Fish fans, we didn't put any h era material in either. We still had plenty of choice ;)
Intro - Calimero
Incubus
Script
3 Boats Down from the Candy
Jigsaw
Raingods Dancing / Wake Up Call
Cinderella Search
Chelsea Monday
Lords of the Backstage
Blind Curve
Childhood's End?
Tux On / Memory of Water NEW
Forgotten Sons
Sugar Mice
Fugazi
Grendel's Return
Market Square Heroes
We had a great afternoon and it was lovely to see so many people with huge grins on their faces... A couple of people deserve extra thanks: Mo for the use of the venue, Nick for the pix, Richard for the sound, Nanda for either the cuddly toy or the cuddle (depending on how I translate Dennis' "knuffel"!!) and Gert-Jan for the bathrobe ;)
News - 09/10/2007 - Barbecue in Weesp
We played on Sunday 30th September in Weesp at a barbecue for Web Holland Forum members - people we knew and yet didn't :) You know a few names, but it's always surprising to put faces to them! What we found best was the warm feeling of being with a group of great people. Thanks! Of course the set we planned was far too long, so we had to skip a couple of tracks...
Intro - La Gazza Ladra
Script
Punch & Judy
Cinderella Search
Waiting to Happen NEW
Chelsea Monday
Jigsaw
This Town NEW
The Rakes Progress NEW
100 Nights NEW
King NEW
Incubus
He Knows You Know
3 Boats Down from the Candy
Lords of the Backstage
Blind Curve
Childhood's End?
Sugar Mice
Last Straw
Forgotten Sons
The Bell in the Sea NEW (not played)
Fugazi NEW (not played)
Grendel Blues NEW (not played)
Hooks in You
Market Square Heroes
Grendel's Return (not played)
And we got loads of requests for more tracks to learn - from Afraid of Sunlight to Interior Lulu (!), Charting the Single and Tux On. We've had a chat about this already and will come up with something for sure :) Alongside all those who bought t-shirts (it'd be great to see a photo on a Marillion site where you can see one of our shirts) we'd like to especially thank two people, Christa and Gert-Jan. Christa did a load of organising and Gert-Jan sorted out the location, some excellent food and a stage. Thanks!!!
News - 07/07/2007 - Autumn Plans
It's been a while and life has been pretty hectic for all of us - not with the Lords but with our other musical, work and family commitments. We have though had a couple of practices since Hellevoetsluis and are pleased to announce that we'll have some new material for the Web Holland Forum BBQ, September 30th in Weesp. We're also looking for a venue for a Xmas gig.
I went to Oslo last month to play with Misplaced Neighbourhood, doing both pre- and post-show gigs around the main Marillion gig, organised by The Web Scandinavia, using a 300-person venue in the same building, which was absolutely packed; and the gigs were great fun. You can find pics on the Misplaced Neighbourhood site. If you click on Members and then my ugly mug, you'll also find a piece about playing in a Marillion "tribute" band. This links in with what I've just written on the gigs page.
News - 07/02/2007 - Fantastic Place
"Fantastic Place" - we don't mean the Marillion number but the place where we last played on February 1st, the main hall of De Boerderij in Zoetermeer...
The setlist was stripped a bit for a 75 minute show - see pic on the right.
The audience were all up for the Marillion Convention, and thoroughly enjoyed an appetiser of lots of the older material. There were a couple of professional photographers there and you'll be able to see some of their work very shortly here on the site; we've also got some good audio of the whole show so there'll be sound clips here soon too.
Next thing to watch out for:
March 17th we're playing another full gig in Mach, te Hellevoetsluis - (address: Fort Haerlemplein 3, Hellevoetsluis)
The idea is to try out a couple of new songs. Unfortunately Denniz' hints in the Dutch version of this are a bit too obvious in English, so go and ask BabelFish what it reckons Assepoester Zoeken might mean ;)
Hope you're looking forward to it - we are !!
News - 14/01/2007 - New Dates
We're still waiting on some new dates, but of course there'll be some :-) Marillion and Fish are both coming to The Netherlands in 2007, so we smell blood :D Obviously it's great to do gigs just before the artist themselves as a sort of warm-up for the fans. We need your ideas on this - let's make it happen!
News - 22/12/2006 - Nijmegen 16/12
Last Saturday's gig was great for us and apparently for the fans :) The superb turnout in Cafe Allicht was especially enthusiastic and sang every number heartily and we'd like to thank Cafe Allicht and everyone who was there. So, 1st february is next - in the main hall of de Boerderij in Zoetermeer together with Gazpacho.
We're still interested in photos and videos from Cafe Allicht to put on the website - particularly any good photos. Let us know if you have any. On the Audio/Video page there's some video and now audio.
Thanks as well to Richard, our soundman. As performers, it's great to be able to trust in another Marillion fan behind the desk.
News - 16/12/2006 - T-Shirts For Sale !!
We've got some lovely-jubbly t-shirts for you all - see below. GBP 7 + P&P (which doesn't have to be too much, as I come over to the UK every month, so can post then). If you'd like one, mail us.
News - 18/10/2006 - Pre-Convention Gig !!
We're going to be playing at De Boerderij in Zoetermeer on February 1st, the day before the Marillion Convention - more news to follow.
News - 20/09/2006 - Gig !!
Saturday 16th December is the "the day that it's all gonna happen". Lords of the Backstage will be performing for your delectation and delight in Nijmegen, at Cafe Allicht. We've made the door tariff as cheap as possible, namely FREE! We'll be playing songs from Marillion's EMI-period (and you know Onkel Fish is going to be in the ascendency!). Come one, come all and let's rock the place!
News - 08/08/2006
Here's our first news item then! The band's been coming along nicely now for a while and it's almost time to rock out...
Rich, our singer, entertainer, h-fan and also webmaster has made this lovely website (thank you, Dennis). Mark Wilkinson (yep, the bloke who made/makes the wonderful Marillion and Fish graphics) went to the the trouble of making us a logo... a la Marillion. The website will continue to grow so keep on coming back. As you can see, you can now read all about it in multiple languages.
The songs are reaching the point where you, the discerning Marillion audience, will enjoy evenings to remember - we've thrown out a few that didn't work ;-) Seriously, it's an interesting job picking a setlist from the almost 25 years of the band's output. Of course you can make suggestions by e-mail. (Obviously we're not going to guarantee that we're going to play them!)
Now that we've got the setlist sorted, it's time for some gigs... We've talked to a variety of promoters and venues and we'll keep you updated with the latest as soon as we know it.