Mark Kelly
“Outside of my dad and his work with Yes, Marillion were the first proggy band that I really liked. Mark’s playing seemed to fit perfectly with the rest of the band. There never seemed to be overplaying for the sake of it, which can be so prevalent in prog.
Play what’s necessary and complement the rest of the parts, not what you can shoehorn into each song. That’s
how I like to hear music, and Mark always seem to do that effortlessly. When solos were needed, they always seemed really melodic and memorable. Incommunicado is a classic example of this. In fact, a stroke of genius in this track is that the main keyboard riff has more fast notes in it than the actual solo! Incommunicado was probably the first keyboard solo I’d heard on the radio for a very long time. I love hearing and seeing musicians play live, and when it’s a player of Mark’s standard it’s never a disappointment. That said, I think when you play music for a living like we do, you get a level of appreciation when watching any musician, as we all know how hard it can be to earn a living and how hard you have to work to get to a high standard.
“I met Mark at a mutual friend’s dinner party properly for the first time many years ago and we pretty much talked all evening. He was a really down-to-earth guy and it was a real pleasure to talk with him. We became good friends after that. Mark is the perfect example of what you can achieve by playing and writing the right parts at the right moment. Any aspiring keyboard player can listen to a Marillion album and hear great playing that complements everybody else on the record. When the time is right for fast soloing, he pulls it out of the bag, but reins it in when others might overpower a song.”