MrPunch @Spirit of 66, January 11th 2020

(Related to Mr.Punch plays Marillion – Racing the Clouds Home)

Though having no legitimacy for reviewing a concert, I take the opportunity of trying to cast my own impressions about this Mr Punch jig at the Spirit of 66 in English. Forgive me in advance, this is outside my usual French usual communication, but only the one who dares not doesn’t make mistakes.

I attended my first MrPunch jig in the Netherlands at Alphen-aan-den-Rijn, in October 2018. This was my first Marillion cover ever. I had really enjoyed it and had kept a very impression, but not THAT much. For a reason or another, I had found the charming guitar heroin Marcella Arganese quite gifted but maybe a bit… distracted ? Unfocused ? Couldn’t be really precise. That concert had been my second in Alphen after a really extraordinary show by Galahad, and I can’t really say that MrPunch had given me an equivalent level of emotion as Stuart Nicholson’s gang had.

But when I heard that they were coming to the Spirit, my personal favourite place for gigs ever, I was really enthusiastic on going to see them again. I could even decide my friend Xavier to come with me… Any show is better when you can share it with friends…

Arriving at the Spirit, I could just notice that the audience was not numerically challenging compared to shows I had seen in the past. Mentioning Fish, Ange, Elliott Murphy, Arena or many others through the years. Nevermind. I was sure that this wonderful spot would supply its own magic to make it big.

As usual, one element that makes this place bigger is that great SOUND. After the expected Gazza Ladra intro reminding my first introduction with Marillion with the “Thieving Magpie” live album in 1988, Slainte Mhath and He Knows You Know gave the signal of something big…. To my ears, MrPunch had grown since I saw them the first time. I was immediately immerged into Marcella’s guitar virtuosity as well as Daniele Fuligni’s keyboard playing…. Sounding so clear, so precise, so emotional, so… Marillionesque. Hell, this stuff was just brilliant. And of course, the Fishy voice of Marco Vincini topping the cake from within this brilliantly ugly cloth so close to out Scottish lumberjack…. I just then realized that he was not the same singer I saw in the previous show, and this was of course making a hell of a difference !

White Russian rushed in… One of my favourite Marillion’s tune ever… Just turned my skin into a shivering carpet. Good lord, MrPuch, you’ve really grown in talent and experience. It was so close to the original that I was just diving in this glowing wave of sounds… “Where do we go from here…..”. Apart from some little English tonic accent mistakes that were just reminding us that this band comes from Italy, this was more than just a talented clone… You could really hear a soul in that music, and a true deep love from the musicians towards that melodies and texts…

Then come the essential parts of Misplaced Childhood, a version brilliant shorted to its most valuable bits… My feet couldn’t keep from bouncing when “Heart of Lothian” eagerly shouted by the audience just took me in a world of simple and entire sound happiness… Surprise, we crossed the first side of the original LP until Childhood’s End…… But not finished… Hey you, surprised ? I don’t know who had the idea of giving this epic and extended end by merging it with the second part of Forgotten Sons, but this was another brilliant move…..

Time for Marco to announce a “last tune” before the intermission… Well “Grendel” as a last tune was quite a big surprise… This epic sounded was powerful… Incredible song with such an infinite variety of ambiances… Formidable playing, devastating energy… This band is really really fit. I was totally amazed by Marcella, reproducing Rothery’s solos with such a perfection… Man, that was really big, big, big… So big than I just wondered how they could maintain such a high level of quality after the break… But… They did. They did even bigger…

After the break, another surprise… “Vigil” came to dinner… Well… Though I dearly love Fish’s solo work… I was just… somehow… misplaced… I sounded so… Not marillion at all. This is really where you realize how unfortunate was the divorce between Fish and the rest of he band… Fish without the other had lost his melodic soul forever… Not MrPunch at all… It was just… Like a bonus track. I thought I was losing the enthusiasm I had at the last notes of Grendel. But we came to the essentials again… Let’s clutch at some straws again… Hotel Hobbies / Warm Wet Circles / That Time of the night executed close to the real perfection… Just a way of reminding us how BIG is that suite, and finally how underestimated it is in its construction, melodically as powerful as the first side of Misplaced Childhood is… Liquid music, soft happiness, and an extremely talented interpretation by the band…

Script for a Jester’s Tear was devastating… Tears were slowly coming to my eyes, especially with the incredible emotion pushed by Marco on the last part. I thought I was 18 years old again, listening to those songs for the first time… Chelsea Monday, the uncomparably dark and martial Fugazi, all of this was making the tension rise again and again… I was just melting… Turned to a pool of liquid pleasure… The Last Straw was sounding like the beginning of the end, but Marco could push his voice again and again to this final climax without having to suffer any comparison with Mr Derek W Dick in intensity and emotion…

And the audience loved, and the audience shouted, and the audience claimed the band to come again for an encore… And the first encore was a bomb… A loud, powerful and invading Incommunicado came to extend this ocean of pure pleasure… They were now looking so tired after having given us so much power… But the audience claimed them again and the band just squeezed their last remainings of energy into amarvelous “Market Square Heroes” that still is printed into my brain… Ending the show where Marillion had begun its history… Who was talking about any last straw ?

More than two hours and a half has passed. I honestly couldn’t figure that out… Brilliant, brilliant, and brilliant.

Thank you so much, MrPunch. You really gave us an outstanding performance, and I dearly wish to see you soon again. Apprrrroach, friends…..