Steve Rothery

Postcards From The Road

ASTRAL HORIZON PRESS

Retail reissue for Marillion’s back pages.

In a dressing room somewhere in Sweden on Marillion’s Fugazi tour, frontman Fish sits reflected in quiet contemplation. In a corner, guitarist Steve Rothery

is snapping away on his everpresent camera, and doesn’t think any more of it until he gets the film developed a few weeks later.

“That’s the one”, Rothery says now. “Fish putting his face paint on in the dressing room. That was the first photo I took where I thought I’d really captured a moment.”

Rothery’s Postcards, until now available only via the band’s website, reminds you that Marillion came up the traditional route: Transit vans, mini-buses, endless motorway miles, and midweek gigs playing to disinterested audiences. These days everyone has a smart phone, but back then it was down to someone like Rothery to capture the minutiae that make up the day-to-day life of a band on the rise.

Rothery has a good eye, and was consistent too: the band flying back from their tour to appear on Top Of The Pops; a slumbering Fish; drummer Ian Mosley deep in conversation with a priest; the introduction of Steve Hogarth, Fish’s replacement. Moments caught in time, Rothery’s love letter to a far-off place from long ago. ■■■■■■■■■■