Marillion Announce UK Tour Dates

Prog rock giants MARILLION announce 7 new UK dates in April 2018 on the back of their October show at The Royal Albert Hall, which sold out within four minutes of going on sale, and The London Palladium in November, which also sold out in record time. MARILLION’S music is more than prog, it’s musically-experimental and yet-emotional. Within the genre it has a uniquely soul-baring aspect which sets the band apart and has elicited an almost religiously zealous following. After nearly 40 years, the band has evolved into a vibrant and international musical force, flourishing seemingly outside of fashion and mainstream media exposure. Since their formation, they have had 19 Top 30 singles, four of which made the Top 10.

Their most recent album, F E A R (Fuck Everyone and Run), peaked at No. 4 in the UK album charts and No. 1 in the rock chart last year and was given a 5-star review by The Guardian. Steve Hogarth says:

“I have been part of this band now for 27 years and it barely feels like 10. I think we’re as inspired as we ever were, and we’re still enjoying creating together. Luckily our music has remained free to evolve and change without the constraints of a corporate music business which otherwise might have killed us. By reinventing the business-model we have maintained a one-to-one relationship with our fans, and that feeling is never more apparent than at the live shows. It’s always a pleasure to share a room with “the family” and exchange the passion on stage with the passion off stage. We’re playing a few places we haven’t visited for a while. Long overdue. ‘Really looking forward to this little outing.”

MARILLION are not just musically innovative… they are widely acknowledged to be the first band to use the-now-commonplace crowdfunding scheme. Pledge Music and Oxford University have acknowledged that the band invented the business model. In the late 90s, fans sponsored an entire US tour. Their first crowd-funded album was Anoraknophobia, released in 2001. Winners of a staggering EIGHT Categories in 2016 Prog Mag Awards (see Notes to Editors), MARILLION elicit remarkable devotion from their international fan base. To those who already love MARILLION, the band is something special. To the uninitiated, it’s a love affair waiting to happen. 2018 Tour Dates as follows:

April Wed 11th Gateshead The Sage Fri 13th Cambridge Corn Exchange Sat 14th Birmingham Symphony Hall Mon 16th Brighton Dome Tue 17th Bristol Colston Hall Thu 19th Reading Hexagon Fri 20th Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Tickets go on sale FRIDAY, 15TH SEPTEMBER at 10.00am – from myticket.co.uk, seetickets.com & venue box offices.

On October 13th, MARILLION release an EP on earMusic featuring a live version of their epic “Living In F E A R” “Living In F E A R” comes in a limited CD Digipak as well as in a limited and numbered 12” Vinyl Edition, which includes three additional unreleased live songs: MARILLION are:

Steve Hogarth – lead vocals, lyrics, keyboards, guitars, percussion Steve Rothery – electric guitars, acoustic guitars Pete Trewavas – Bass, Guitar, Backing Vocals, Piano. Mark Kelly – keyboards, samples and effects, backing vocals, programming Ian Mosley – drums, percussion

In the 2016 Prog Mag Readers’ Poll 2016 MARILLION won the following categories:

Band of the year Album of the year Best Male Vocalist Best Bassist Best Keyboardist Best Guitarist Best Drummer Best Event

Not everyone has heard of MARILLION, but everyone has felt their influence – the band are widely acknowledged to have been the first to use crowdfunding.

As far back as the late 1990s, Marillion’s fans sponsored an entire US tour responding to an appeal posted on the fledgling Internet, donating $60,000. In 1997 the band responded creating its own website (the first rock ‘n’ roll website in the UK) and began what was to change the landscape of music. With the support of its passionate fans, Marillion bypassed the conventional music industry, took control of its future, and forged its own path, naming their album marillion.com, banishing the spectre of record company pressure and influence once and for all. Marillion launched its own record label, the aptly named Intact imprint. In so doing, the band freed itself up to produce some of the finest music of its career. In 2001, Anoraknophobia saw Marillion take the groundbreaking step of asking fans to pre-order an album a full 12 months before release. Anyone doing so would receive a specially packaged CD, which would include their name in the “Thanks” list. An amazing 12,000 people signed up, helping not only to finance the recording, but also to create a budget to launch the album. In doing so, the band invented “Crowdfunding”. This was anything but a one-time event and the band has since funded a number of albums this way. The crowd-funded business model has since been embraced globally to finance music, film and art which otherwise might never have existed. After over thirty years, the band shows no signs of slowing down and new generations of young fans are discovering the music for themselves. And there’s plenty of it. With a catalogue of 18 albums behind them, having written music that draws on every genre Marillion can be considered Progressive not just musically, but in just about every sense.

www.marillion.com