Marillion

Silmarillion, Aylesbury, 1979

Marillion formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1979 under the name Silmarillion, trimmed to Marillion within a year or two. Guitarist Steve Rothery is the one founder still in the line-up. Mark Kelly arrived on keyboards in 1981, Pete Trewavas on bass in 1982 and Ian Mosley on drums in 1983, and that engine room has played every show since. Out front in those years was Fish, the Scottish singer whose theatrical lyrics defined the first four records.

Script for a Jester's Tear reached number seven in the UK in 1983, at a point when progressive rock was widely assumed to be finished. Two years later Misplaced Childhood went to number one, still the band's only chart-topper, and its singles Kayleigh and Lavender peaked at two and five. Clutching at Straws followed in 1987 and reached number two, with Incommunicado a number six single. Then Fish left in 1988, and a good many observers assumed the band would go with him.

The new boy, 37 years in

Steve Hogarth joined in January 1989. A conversation with the former Curved Air violinist Daryl Way led to an audition, at a time when he was expecting to go out on tour with The The instead. He is still referred to as the new boy, and by 2026 he had fronted Marillion for more than 37 years, several times longer than his predecessor. The early Hogarth records did not repeat the mid-80s chart run, but Brave in 1994 and Afraid of Sunlight in 1995 became the pair the audience treats as the spine of the second era.

What happened next changed how the band was financed. In 1997 fans raised around 60,000 dollars online to pay for US tour dates. In 2001, 12,674 supporters pre-ordered Anoraknophobia before it was recorded, and that money funded the album's production, a model that is now routinely cited as fan crowdfunding years before the platforms existed. From 2002 the band added Marillion Weekend, multi-night residencies at holiday villages and theatres where the set changes each night and whole albums are played through.

The records that carry the set

Marbles, released in 2004, gave the band its first top ten single in years when You're Gone reached number seven. F.E.A.R. entered at number four in 2016. An Hour Before It's Dark, released in 2022, went to number two, the band's highest chart position since 1987, and its closing Care suite has since become the centrepiece of the live show. Marillion were named Band of the Year at the 2013 Progressive Music Awards, and Classic Rock placed them 38th in a 2008 list of the fifty best live acts.

The catalogue is also being reworked. On 19 June 2026 earMUSIC issued a deluxe edition of Marillion.com, the 1999 album that had divided the fanbase on release. It carries a full remix, audio from the November 1999 Shepherd's Bush Empire concert, and a Blu-ray with the Shot in the Dark concert film, a documentary and 23 demos and works in progress. Reviewing it for Record Collector on 14 July 2026, John Tucker called the original "an album of many treasures" and "something of a watershed moment", while conceding it "wasn't particularly well received by devotees at the time". He described the media book presentation as sumptuous.

Album twenty-one: cooking with gas

The new record has been in the works throughout 2026. In a studio update published on 24 April 2026 the band said the album was "firmly in the 'cooking with gas' stage", with "a strong batch of songs", and that they were heading to Real World Studios the following week to fine-tune the material and decide what makes the final cut. A pre-order campaign was promised for the summer. The band said the album was unlikely to arrive before the autumn UK tour, though they hoped to play one or two new songs on it. A title was still being discussed.

Hogarth added detail in an interview with Australian Musician published on 9 July 2026. He said there was potentially enough material for a double album, and that it had been built from months of recorded improvisation in the band's Buckinghamshire studio rather than written on the road. In a post on the band's own site on 28 July 2026, he said he was going straight back into vocal sessions with the producer after Pompeii, before the band took holidays to the end of the month and regrouped for the UK dates.

Pompeii, Germany and a first trip to Australia

The summer of 2026 was the busiest the band had had in Europe for years. An eight-date German run, announced in September 2025 as the first there in more than a decade, ran from Rastatt on 4 July to Leipzig on 15 July. At the Tempodrom in Berlin on 14 July the show ran two and a half hours, from Splintering Heart at the top through Kayleigh, Seasons End and the four-part Care suite, with the Flowing Chords choir joining for a seven-song stretch that included The Space and Go!, before an encore of Wave, Mad and The Great Escape. The setlist record for that night also notes technical trouble during Afraid of Sunlight and at the end of Man of a Thousand Faces.

The Pompeii show was announced on 30 October 2025 for Saturday 25 July 2026 in the Roman amphitheatre, with the band promising a carefully crafted set and confirming the concert would be filmed for release. A second night on 26 July was added. Hogarth's account on 28 July described extreme heat, then unexpected rain that lit up in the lasers during one song without soaking the equipment. He said fans from 50 countries had attended, praised the drone footage, and asked whether the choir hadn't been wonderful, hinting they may be back. One fan review of the second night was blunter: "Mix poor. Performance topnotch, choir best bit."

Hogarth is also taking his solo h Natural show to Australia in December 2026, with dates at the Oxford Art Factory and Lazybones Lounge in Sydney and two nights at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. Neither he nor the band had performed in Australia before, and he suggested one of the new songs might get an airing.

Fourteen UK nights, then the Netherlands and France

The UK tour was announced on 17 November 2025 and went on sale three days later. It opens at Portsmouth Guildhall on 12 September 2026 and moves through Brighton Dome, York Barbican, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, Bristol Beacon, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, Friars at Aylesbury Waterside, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Cambridge Corn Exchange, the Glasshouse in Gateshead, Liverpool Philharmonic and Edinburgh's Usher Hall before two closing nights at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith on 1 and 2 October. Haunt The Woods, an alternative rock band from Cornwall, open every date. Announcing it, Hogarth said: "There's nothing quite like playing live in the UK. The sheer emotional energy at these shows is usually pretty extraordinary." By early September the band's site listed York and Manchester as sold out, with Birmingham and Liverpool on last tickets.

The band then plays six Dutch shows between 16 and 23 October, all sold out, with Unbelievable Truth supporting, and eight French dates from Rennes on 18 November to Lyon on 29 November with Lazuli in support, including a sold-out Casino de Paris and a night at the Opera Garnier in Monte Carlo. Marillion Weekends for 2027 are already scheduled in Rotterdam, Port Zelande, Krakow, Tallinn, Marseille, Leicester, Barcelona and Berlin.