Closing the circle: So long and thanks for all the (music) Fish

For many thousands of women and men of a certain age, today sees the end of a musical era. A final farewell gig in Glasgow tonight sees the bringing to a finale a musical journey which has, for the man at the heart of it and many of his fans, lasted more than 40 years. After his final live show tonight with his band in the Glasgow O2 Academy, Scottish rock singer, actor, award-winning broadcaster (on Planet Rock) and writer, Fish, real name Derek William Dick, will retire from the music industry.

I’ve managed to get this far without mentioning the fact about Fish that nearly every article about him starts with, namely ‘former frontman for progressive rock band Marillion' which is indeed the guise in which many (most?) of his fans first encountered his music and his thought-provoking, clever and personal lyric writing. It's somewhat ironic to start there, as his solo career, since leaving Marillion in 1988 has been four to five times as long as his Marillion career and has produced 11 studio albums and 21 (!) live albums. His final album, Weltschmerz, released in 2020, is perhaps as fine a set of songs as he has ever produced, widely acclaimed as a career high, something he has said he wanted to end his career with (although you can have fun debating best and favourite albums with his fans!).

Fish and his wife Simone have sold up their home and recording studio near Haddington (20 miles east of Edinburgh) and moved to the Outer Hebrides, to run a croft on the island of Berneray. In November 2023, he struck a deal with Primary Wave Music, a leading independent publisher of iconic and legendary music who acquired his master royalties and writer’s share for for the songs he wrote and recorded with Marillion. He has wound up his Chocolate Frog record company and his Fish online music and merchandise shop and he is retiring properly. Fish has said all along that he is a writer who can sing (rather than a singer who can write songs) and he means to work on his autobiography, screen plays and… who knows what else? And, after tonight, he will be the artist formerly known as Fish, that identity being put to bed so he can resume his life as Derek.

Fish's solo career has been characterised by a warm and generous relationship with his fans, with 'meet-and-greets' and numerous fan weekends and conventions, often in continental Europe and some in Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland, where Fish has been based for over 30 years. Throughout lockdown, and until recently, Fish also live streamed on Facebook from his home near Haddington almost every Friday evening for two hours from 6pm UK time, engaging in a live interactive session with his fans through their Facebook comments on the live stream. These 'Fish on Friday' sessions, named after his Planet Rock radio show, were hugely popular with fans and Fish has said in interview that it was as much for his own mental well-being during lockdown, as it was for the fans. Nevertheless, it was a great and pretty generous commitment of his time and energy and was much enjoyed and appreciated by many.

His final, farewell UK 'Road to the Isles Tour' (a reference to Fish and Simone's move to the Outer Hebrides) was, I think, meant to happen after the release of Weltschmerz but Covid etc got in the way. In the social media groups in which Fish's fans gather virtually, it has been an intensely anticipated 15 date tour of small-medium sized (and largely sold-out) venues, one of the largest of which is the O2 Academy in Glasgow for last night's and tonight's two final shows.

I'm not a completely disinterested bystander. In those pre-Internet days, my friends and I first came across Marillion and Fish in early 1982, when demo tracks were being played on the 'Forth Bridges' Monday late-night rock show on Forth FM in Edinburgh. Already hooked on Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis as part of a wider teenage diet of heavy and classic rock, this was heady stuff for us, with a giant singer who came from our part of the world, as a 'Dalkeith boy' from the neighbouring county of Midlothian (we lived in East Lothian) playing music that sounded like nothing else being produced at the time. We'd scour Sounds, the rock-friendly weekly music paper for titbits of news and I sent off for back copies of Marillion's fan magazine, The Web which duly arrived in the post accompanied by a signed photo of Fish in greasepaint and wearing a horned helmet. 

In August 1982, my friend Pete and I, keen to see them play live, made the long journey by bus from Scotland to the Theakston Festival at Nostell Priory near Wakefield, to see Marillion play their first festival (at our first festival too), supporting Jethro Tull. That weekend, EMI signed up Marillion and, soon after, we were on tenterhooks for the release of their first record, the single Market Square Heroes. That release happened around the first time we saw them in Scotland, with a gig at the tiny Edinburgh Nite Club in November 1982. In our memories, the highlight of this night (apart from seeing their epic song 'Grendel' performed live) was probably the band asking us to help them load their gear into the van afterwards, and meeting Fish's Dad (he was very friendly, asking us if we were waiting to see Derek!). This kind of thing didn't happen to us at other gigs! A couple of years later, Fish spent some time living with his parents in North Berwick and we would spot him in the pub and out and about. He'd go to Hibernian FC football matches with friends of ours who were also Hibees. Incidentally, I have an autograph that a friend working in North Berwick's Galbraith supermarket asked Fish to sign for me in March 1984, as he knew I was a big fan. That friend then promptly misplaced the autograph and only found it 31 years later in a container on a mantelpiece when he was clearing out his late father's house, and then posted it to me!

It's these connections to his time in North Berwick that makes the Marillion song 'Warm

 Wet Circles' (from their fourth studio album 'Clutching at Straws', in 1987) one of my favourites, with its references to places and people we grew up around.

Copyright unknown

Marillion in their first festival performance at the Theakston Festival, August 1982 (c) Gerald Sables

As history records, Marillion's rise after that first single release in 1982 was fairly meteoric and we were regular attendees at Marillion concerts in various festivals and at Scottish venues for the next six years. The last time I saw Fish performing with Marillion was in the summer of 1988 at a small festival in St Andrews called Fife Aid 2 (raising money for poor farmers overseas?). We had a wild time down at the front row for Marillion's performance, not realising that it would be his last show with the band as he left soon thereafter. That I had seen his last show with Marillion was something I only discovered earlier this year.

Marillion at Fife Aid 2 in August 1988, fatefully Fish's last gig with the band

before he went 'solo in the game' (c) Paul Holmes

His solo career kicked off in Autumn 1989 with a single release, State of Mind, and a UK tour ahead of the launch of his first solo album, 'Vigil in a wilderness of mirrors'. I managed to see his two warm-up gigs for that tour, in Haddington's Corn Exchange in October 1989 (my diary entry says his new solo material was 'very strong (and good)' - incisive assessment!). And then... and then... I wouldn't see Fish play live again for another 21 years which, when I look back is a bit shocking. I bought his first four solo albums as they were released (and loved the first two intensely) but then studies, work, relationships, other priorities, life just got in the way. I have listened to and loved his Marillion and solo music all through those years but just never got to gigs (not just Fish gigs either) or fan conventions. In 2006, the aforementioned lifelong gig pal Pete called me and said I had to buy 13th Star, Fish's latest solo album - he was of course correct that I would love it. A real gem full of wonderful songs. And I was inspired to play catch-up with the albums from the intervening years. A cornucopia of music over the period, with Fish's heart worn on his sleeve for all to hear, and a world view in his lyrics that swung at outrage and optimism in equal measure.


I finally managed to see Fish play live again in 2010, again in Haddington, on the acoustic Fishheads Club tour with Foss Paterson on keyboards and Frank Usher on guitar, in the enormous Saint Mary's Church where one of Fish's weddings took place. I'm so glad I went to that show as I made lifelong friends from a conversation over the course of an hour at the head of the queue with a Dutch couple, Tom and Ellen, whose love of Fish's music had brought them (not for the first time) to Scotland just to see his shows. We hit it off, have been friends ever since and have had some great adventures - thanks to Fish and the power of saying hello!


So when 'Weltschmerz' was released in 2020, and a farewell tour mentioned (and eventually, post-COVID, emerged in 2024/2025), I was keen to go for one last hurrah, to see Fish off into his retirement, taking the chance to enjoy him playing live one final time in 'The Company' of Fish's loyal and enthusiastic fans and with Fish's hugely talented and experienced band of friends and long-time collaborators. We had a moving and joyful night at the first show of the tour, in the Haddington Corn Exchange in February 2025, back together with Pete and Simon, with whom I went to many rock gigs in the 1980s. That was meant to be it. A final night of live Fish to close the circle after 43 years.

But I couldn't pass up the chance of one more show when I found a return ticket for last night's show in Glasgow, Fish's second last ever performance. It didn't matter that, although he has two overlapping but different sets for this final tour, I saw mostly the same set twice. The crowd was up for a great night and sang our hearts out, the band fed off their energy and it was a really special and memorable night of live Fish fandom for me. I can't imagine what the emotions will be like tonight for the final show.

And so, after tonight's show, as Fish sang back in Marillion days: 'The game is over.' Time, indeed, to take that Road to the Isles. After 43 years of amazing music, some great gigs and important friendships forged through that music, with the closing of that circle, I wish Fish and Simone all the best of luck, love and health in the next stage of their life journey, on their Hebridean croft, and also continued success to the rest of Fish's band. And, in the future, we have Fish's proposed autobiography to look forward to, no doubt stimulating much revisiting of his back catalogue!

Slàinte Mhath!

Fish and Simone on Berneray (c) Fish/ Derek Dick

Photos (c) Scot Mathieson except where stated otherwise

Mirth, music, misery and 'monica

A stool, a box of harmonicas, two guitars and some mikes

 Sorry for the contrived alliteration of the title to this post but last night we were entertained mightily by a great gig at the Stirling Tolbooth by James Grant, frontman for Scottish band Love and Money, songwriter, guitarist and collaborator with, amongst others, Karen Matheson of Capercaillie. I've been a fan of Grant's work since 1988 when Love and Money released their "Strange Kind of Love" album which I regard, to this day, as one of the most perfectly conceived and performed sets of songs in modern popular music. I have probably listened to that album more often than to any other over the last 24 years. So, as you can imagine, a chance to see him playing live in our wee venue in Stirling would be enough of an attraction in its own right.

However, while we saw him perform a great solo show last time he came here in November 2009, this time he wasn't travelling alone. He was joined last night by a long-term musical collaborator (and clearly great friend), harmonica player and virtuoso Fraser Speirs, a fellow Glaswegian who has played on many of Grant's and Love and Money's recordings over the years. I mumble along badly on the harmonica and, indeed, have played for several years with a bunch of folk in that very venue (in a back room rather than the stage, I hasten to add) and have wanted to see Fraser Speirs playing live for a long time. So, the chicken's entrails read well for an auspicious evening (a bit tough on the chicken though)...

A solo set of three numbers by James Grant before...

Speirs and Grant in full flow

I won't review the night song by song but this was a much more varied set than the last time we saw JG play here. There were old Love and Money numbers (including one of my favourites, "Walk the Last Mile"), many tracks from his solo recordings, including, after some cajoling and banter, some fun audience chorus singing on "The Scarecrow Song", and some great covers (e.g. Angie, Tom Waits' Clap Hands and others). One great thing about James Grant's live performances is his funny (some would say dry) chat (definitely from the Glasgow school of mirth). I remember a TV interview with JG, maybe in the early 1990's - I can't recall its name - but I remember the discussion of the influence on his writing of a belief that most people live their live in a kind of quiet desperation. I now know that was Henry David Thoreau that said it first but a sense of that still percolates many of James Grant's more recent work. He claims the misery and gloom that are the usual subject of his material demands that he tries to amuse us between songs. But it's mostly gentle, and often self-deprecating, stories and he has a great rapport with his audience, many of whom (maybe most last night?) have been coming to his shows since the late 1980's. I guess it's part of what makes for a pretty intimate experience, one that's probably easier to foster too in a wee venue like the Tolbooth (150-160 seats, tops?) and we both came away last night feeling like we'd been part of something special (actually, that's not uncommon for gigs at the Tolbooth in our experience where you sit so close to the performers and we were in the front row).

Oh, and did I mention that Grant is an exceptional guitarist - one of the things that attracted me to Love and Money in the first instance was the sheer varied musicality of his guitar lines, whether rhythm, picking or lead parts. And his style of playing and singing is complemented extremely well by harmonica.

For a wee flavour of last night's show, here's a recording of Grant and Speirs live, taken from Youtube, a performance of a Love and Money classic, Lips Like Ether, which they also played last night:

Fraser Speirs giving it large on the moothie last night...

This is what a proper harmonica player's gig box looks like!

In case you've never seen or heard Fraser Speirs playing harmonica (although he has played with so many artists that you will almost certainly have heard his playing without realising - check out his remarkable discography on the appropriate tab here), here's a wee treat for you, with Speirs playing a version of 'Lost John' for the audience at Edinburgh Folk Club, The Pleasance, in January 2008 (and with a nice chatty intro too):

Was there ever an instrument more designed to mimic the sound of steam trains? I doubt it. As I said before, I play harmonica (but badly!) and I can tell you there is amazing layer upon layer of technique and breathing control in this performance, and clever use of the mike! Oh and it's great fun too...

And to round off this excitement-fest, in case you've lived a blighted existence and haven't heard Love and Money before (you poor old sod), here's a vintage performance (was this a promo video for the single? I don't know) from 1991's "Dogs in the traffic" album, a track which also features Fraser Speirs, "Waiting for Angeline":

Incidentally, James Grant's own website is here (where he has generously shared the chords and lyrics for all of his L&M and solo work), and Fraser Speirs website can be found here, including a harmonica tutorial.

What a Rush!

I think it was probably 1978, round at Pete's house one schoolday lunchtime. He had just received a delivery, maybe his first, from one of those mail-order record clubs. In the delivery was Rainbow's 1976 album "Rainbow Rising" which, alone, was enough to blow young minds freshly arrived in the world of rock. But for me, a seminal and slightly life-changing encounter that day was with another 12 inch diameter piece of black vinyl that had arrived in the box - Rush's "Farewell to Kings" album:

 What was this? Who was that guy with the high voice and what on earth were they singing about? Three Canadians with songs about Spaceships, black holes, Kings, philosophers and ploughmen, and some sublime musicianship. To a teenage mind rapidly absorbing as much science fiction as I could lay my hands on and with a burgeoning taste in rock music, especially on the more melodic wing (and maybe even then in the progressive vein), this was heady stuff indeed! After a bit more rooting about in record shops (this was pre-internet of course), I came to realise that this was Rush's fifth studio album and I remember thinking at the time "Ah well, I guess I've missed their most productive period", as that was the usual pattern, wasn't it? A lifetime of preparing for the first album, spillover of that good material into the second and then a steady decline! I could never have guessed that I would still be listening to fresh new music appearing from Rush 33 years later, and still eagerly anticipating new albums from a band that had been recording for 37 years!

Anyone who knows me really well will know that the music of Rush has been one of the great musical loves of my life. I can't count the thousands of hours of activity that have been accompanied by Rush on vinlyl or tape, then on CD and now on mp3 or iPod. I'm a Rush fan or a fanboy or a geek or a nerd. Accordingly, I was delighted and excited to hear of another tour, the Time Machine tour, which they were to bring to the UK in May 2011. And so, accompanied by the same Pete who had inadvertently introduced me to Rush in the first place, and who has been to at least two other Rush gigs with me before, I went to see them in the Glasgow SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) two weeks ago tonight, some 30 years since I first saw them.



The big excitement of the Time Machine tour for UK fans was that the band was going to play in its entirety, for the first time in the UK, their 1981 "Moving Pictures" album, one of my favourites and their biggest selling album in the U.S., and which remains the band's most popular and commercially successful studio recording to date. Here's a picture of the cover of my programme for the 1981 tour for "Moving Pictures" (in which shows, ironically, they didn't play the whole album). That was my first Rush gig (and Pete's) (at the Ingliston Showground in Edinburgh) and generated a splendid piece of rock memorabilia for both of us (see below).

My old programme from the Rush 1981 "Moving Pictures" tour

My much-treasured autographed page from the Moving Pictures tour programme, from the days when the band used to wheel themselves out to meet fans after the gig - and all three of the guys, not just Geddy and Alex who do most of the meet and greet (and interview) stuff these days. In fact, Pete and I were waiting for our lift home (Pete's Dad maybe?) outside the Ingliston venue. Most of the crowd had gone home, when suddenly a roadie sauntered over and said that the band were just coming out to a table and three chairs behind us to sign autographs. Blimey, talk about the right place and right time... I don't think I washed the hand that shook the hands for about a week! Hey, I was 16 - this was an important event! It has to be said, they don't look much like this anymore, but I've changed in 30 years too...

With the advent of camera phones, there is now a much greater opportunity to capture some great personal memories of gigs, so here is a selection of my photos from the Glasgow show on May 14th. No real spoilers here from me for anyone still to see the tour elsewhere on the planet. If you want a detailed set list or a review, look elsewhere!



Successful rock bands on tour need big trucks - here, Rush are using Stage Truck (did you notice what they did with that name there? Very clever!)

But a big show like the one that Rush puts on needs a lot more than one truck - ten, in fact, which needed a stitched-together panorama to capture then all!



A selection of the signs in the SECC that night - strobe lighting, smoke and pyrotechnics? I damn well hope so - that's what I paid my money for!




The guys from the band (as they were in 1976 at least) - this was a mini-highlight of the night for me - these three uber-fans must have had a couple of hundred photos taken - they were in the front block of the stalls - I hope they had a great night and I do hope the band spotted them!



Here's the original look from the 2112 album in 1976 - at least we now know from where George Lucas pinched the costume ideas for Luke Skywalker...

The audiences at Rush gigs these days feature a lot of heads like mine...

An eight-armed lighting rig, each arm multiply jointed and able to move independently, and each arm covered in lights - very impressive!

And a great video screen put to great, often split-image, effect. In this case, a little Geddy Lee and a big Geddy Lee!



During "Working Them Angels" from "Snakes and Arrows"



Little Geddy Lee and big Alex Lifeson with a mandolin close-up, again during "Working Them Angels"

The guys in the band...

 

The Professor, Neil Peart during his drum solo - the great overhead camera shows his three different drum kits on a rotating base, includin th electronic kit he's added in recent years. And was that a wee bit of film of Gene Krupa that I saw during the video show for the drum solo?

We're jammin'...

A bit of "2112" - what else could it be?

A great night - probably the best show I've seen Rush put on over the 30 years I've been going to see them! If you have the chance, go and catch the Time Machine tour - you won't regret it...

"Now is the Solstice of the year..."

[* Silly nature boy - while I was busy blogging about the summer solstice below, it was of course THE VERNAL EQUINOX! The solstices are the longest and shortest days and the equinoxes, as their Latin-originating name suggests, are the two days in Spring and Autumn when the day and night are each 12 hours long. I was wishing away the Spring, clearly, in anticipation of Summer's delights - apologies to any confused readers. In fairness to my friend Mark, it was him who noticed... smarty pants... Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the Jethro Tull! *]


"Now is the Solstice of the year": So sang Ian Anderson in Jethro Tull's track "Ring Out Solstice Bells", from their album "Songs from the wood", a pretty unashamed celebration of nature. not surprisingly, it is one of my favourite rock records. As last night was the Summer Solstice, it seems a fitting time to share the video below, even although it is about the Winter Solstice...).

According to the comments about this on YouTube, it was produced by the BBC to support showing of this track on some long-forgotten TV rock show. We, however, can still enjoy the mighty Tull, lie back and think about the increasing day length and encroaching Spring (I heard a chiffchaff this morning, a little summer visiting warbler, fresh arrived from Africa!).

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Mountain: Nantucket Sleighride

Another musical nostalgia-fest for me here. I wanted to share a recording of what has been one of my favourite rock tracks of all-time. No matter how often I listen to this, I never tire of it - the track Nantucket Sleighride by the American rock band Mountain:



This is another band and track to which, like Rory Gallagher, I was introduced by my Uncle David when I was a little lad (maybe 12?). Mountain were an amazing hard rock combo, based around "man-mountain" guitarist Leslie West (vying occasionally for the title of tubbiest guitarist in rock history) and bassist Felix Pappalardi (probably vying for the title of coolest name in rock!). Amazingly, West, Pappalardi and their long-term drumming member Corky Laing are still playing live all over the world today (West seems a bit slimmer these days in the recent Youtube videos I've seen - a bit like Meatloaf, who's also half the man he used to be but in a good way!).

So, Nantucket Sleighride, the title of the track (and the album on which it appeared) is a moving tribute to Owen Coffin, a young whaler who set sail, at the age of 17, on the whaling ship Essex out into the Pacific Ocean on a sperm whale-hunting expedition in August 1819, under the command of his cousin, George Pollard, Jr. As described on Wikipedia: "In November the next year, a whale rammed and stove in the hull of the Essex in mid-Pacific, and the ship sank steadily... The crew of the Essex escaped in small whaleboats, with sufficient supplies for two months, but were not rescued in that time. During January 1821, the near-starved survivors began to eat the bodies of those who died. When even this resource ran out, the four men remaining in Pollard's boat agreed to draw straws to decide which of them should be slaughtered, lest all four die of starvation. Coffin 'won' the lottery, and was shot and eaten." Poor bloody little lad probably never stood a chance as the youngest in a bunch of desperate, starving men.

This song haunts me and it would consistently be a Desert Island Disc choice for me (without irony!). The lyrics of the song clearly concern a whaler being parted for three years from his loved ones on a hunt for the "mighty sperm whale" and the title "Nantucket Sleighride" refers to the major historical whaling port of Nantucket in Massachusets, New England, describing what happened to the whalers' rowing boat when they successfully harpooned a whale. "The whale, realizing it had been harpooned, would attempt to flee and drag the whale boat along with it. The speed of the "sleigh ride" would vary depending on the size of the whale, with larger whales giving faster rides... Once the whale expended its energy, the sailors would kill it and harvest its oil." In the 19th century, whaling was an industry where, unlike today's ongoing mechanised slaughter of whales by Norwegian and Japanese vessels with their large diesel engines and explosive headed harpoons, in the name of so-called "scientific whaling" (aye, right!), the whalers would row out in longboats and attempt to harpoon whales with hand-thrown harpoons. Whaling trips must have been nasty and brutish, and the lives of whalers often extremely foreshortened.

Readers/ listeners of a certain vintage might recognise the refrain in this track - it was used during the 1970's and up to 1988, as the theme music for London Weekend Television's excellent current affairs programme "Weekend World", shown up here on Scottish Television (STV).

Acoustic Rory

Not more Rory Gallagher? Whatever happened to all that nature stuff this blog? Well, don't panic. I just fancied sharing another true favourite track of mine, "Out on the western plain" by Rory Gallagher. He performed this song without his band, alone on stage with an acoustic guitar each time I saw him do it live, a fabulous performance each time. If I could do this, I could die happy... I hope you enjoy it. Back to nature tales soon, I promise...

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Rory Gallagher again...

Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of the late, great Rory Gallagher, Ireland's finest-ever guitarist. Feeling a little sad tonight, I turned to this great performance of a melancholy song for the mood I was in and now I think it needs to be shared. I hope you enjoy it too.

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