Tyneside date stirs memories for rock legend
Fish plays his final show at Newcastle City Hall this week, 48 years since he first came down from Scotland to catch one of Lindisfarne’s Christmas gigs. Simon Rushworth caught up with him
“When I was talking to the promoter about where we were going to take the Road To The Isles farewell tour, I said we needed to play Newcastle City Hall,” explains Fish. “I used to bomb down there on Christmas Eve from the Borders in my Mini 850 — green body, white roof — with my then girlfriend when I was about 18 years old. We were huge Lindisfarne fans. I loved them.”
Marillion — the band that launched Fish’s career on the back of a string of 1980s hits — went on to support Lindisfarne ‘a couple of times’ before a chance meeting brought two like-minded souls together.
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“I met Alan Hull after the funeral of [music manager] Toby Stratton-Smith in a bar in Soho,” he recalls. “I had a lovely time with him and he was an absolutely beautiful guy. I wish I’d got to know him an awful lot more. He was an incredible poet and such an interesting character. Winter Song is still one of the most beautiful lyrics ever.”
For Fish, the City Hall will always be synonymous with Lindisfarne but by the mid 80s Marillion — who he controversially quit in 1988 to pursue a solo career — were making their own memories on Tyneside. There was the time Kerrang! magazine organised an interview and photo shoot backstage which involved make-up, candles and, no doubt, a few beers. “It was a famous image in Kerrang!,” adds Fish. “Ray Palmer was the photographer and it became an iconic shot. What people didn’t see was that we set fire to the carpet!”
If Fish loves the City Hall then he really loves Geordies. Alan Hull aside, one of his best mates in the music business is another dyed-in-the-wool North Easterner. “Me and Spike [Quireboys’ frontman] go way back,” he points out. The two met up last month as the Road To The Isles tour stopped off in Bristol and their paths could well cross again this week. “We met at the Marquee in the mid-80s and that was it,” smiles Fish.
“Gravity pulled us together in London back then and it turned out that we had two very similar candles, which burnt at both ends. Spike's a real character.
“He's actually one of the few singers I got on really, really well with. He did a thing for me on the Funny Farm Kitchen Garden show that we did a while back, which was hilarious. We talked about doing some sort of Gone Fishing-style TV programme together because we're a good match.”
Once the Road To The Isles dates are done Fish, as the tour banner suggests, will head off into the sunset and settle down on his croft in the Outer Hebrides. It’s a simple life, worlds away from the rigours of rock and roll and a life the long-serving singer songwriter is relishing.
“I wanted to mark my retirement in the right way,” he explains. “I wanted to say goodbye properly, rather than sneak out the back door or whatever. It's like being at the party and leaving before you're bumping into tables and getting a bit wobbly.
“I wanted to depart with a level of decorum. To be honest, I made the decision to do this tour as far back as 2015! I reckon it was probably around about then. I'd done the Feast of Consequences album and I knew I had one really, really good album left in me. A real cracker. And that was Weltschmerz (2020). That was always in my head as being my farewell album. And, you know, I had a plan.”
Brexit and a global pandemic interrupted that plan and it’s taken a decade for Fish to get back on track. But he’s adamant it’s time to bid a fond farewell to his loyal UK fans following a hugely successful European tour in 2024.
The 66-year-old no longer recognises the music business that helped make Marillion’s name and he adds: “People are reappraising their relationship with music and I’m no different.
“There are a lot of the small venues, especially on the folk scenes nowadays, that have been revitalised. There's a lot of music going on on the island. But it's small scale. Not everybody can have an empire but they still have to make a living.
“At the other end of the scale, it’s just awful. I hate going to see those big arena shows anyway but the whole Oasis thing last year? I thought that was abhorrent. I just went ‘God almighty, is this what it’s come down to?’.
“It’s beyond the music. It’s just become a huge corporate business that’s wrapped up in this kind of ‘kid on, jovial, us and the masses man’ bollocks. It’s not that — it’s just a huge money-making exercise.
“I’m not stupid. I’m not naïve. And I’ll readily admit that the farewell tour is a chance for me to make some money before I retire. I’m not going to lie about that. This business has been really good to me. But at the same time I don’t belong to the industry any more. It’s ruled by money and tech.”
On that note Fish refuses to be beholden to the corporate cash grab that is charging artists an increasingly high premium to sell their merchandise within the venue. “Most of the venues on the tour — including the O2 City Hall, unfortunately — are charging 15 per cent on sales plus 20 per cent VAT.
“So the shirts are going to be more expensive in the venue but we've found some really nice people who are helping us out. The City Tavern, just down the road from the City Hall, is allowing us to sell the vinyl and bits and pieces in there.
“The prices on the website will be the prices that will be in the Tavern. It'll be open from 1.30pm until about 7pm on the day of the Newcastle show.”
Unlike so many ‘farewell tours’, when artists miraculously re-emerge just a few years after calling it a day, the Road To The Isles really is the end of the road for Fish.
“The live shows and the tours and performing in front of people who appreciate the music I’ve made — that’s the side of the music business I still relate to,” he concludes. “I’m well up for finishing things off and there will be some emotional nights to look forward to. I’m not sad. I feel lucky.”
Fish plays the O2 City Hall, Newcastle on March 6. Remaining tickets are available via the website.