I was talking to a random stranger in a queue the other day as I commented on the Marillion t-shirt he was wearing and he mentioned his first gig ever was seeing them in Swansea at the same gig as me (it was my second gig ever), I mentioned the late arrival due to the top of the pops appearance and he said he was thinking of just going home but decided to stay and was glad that he did, I mentioned a few things that I remember but he looked at me blankly, so just wondering if anyone one else who was there remembers a couple of very trivial bits from my memory and if I remember correctly, I do remember trivial things from years ago but could never remember anything useful 😄

My hazy memories of that night (correct me if anyone remembers differently), I remember the support band being a hard rock/metal band, that's about all I remember of them. Then about an hour after they'd finished and we were wondering where Marillion were and getting a bit bored and restless, a guy came on stage and said something along the lines of "as most of you know, garden party went into the charts this week at number 24 and as a result Marillion have been invited onto top of the pops to perform it live, they're currently there as we speak but they've promised that as soon as totp is finished they'll be coming down to play for you, this obviously means it's going to be in a few hours time as they'll be driving down from London but they will definitely be here (cheers from crowd) so for those who want to stay it will be worth it" also maybe something about if you don't want to stay you can get a refund etc

I was in the balcony seating upstairs & don't remember seeing anyone leave but I think there was 1 payphone in the place and people were queuing up to ring their parents to say they'd be home very very late (I'm sure I spoke to my dad and he didn't believe me and thought I was up to no good)

Then about midnight the band came on stage (stage right) to huge applause and Fish said something like "thanks to everyone for staying we really appreciate it, it might not be as tight a performance as usual but we'll try our best.....this is Garden Party". I very vividly remember that song and He knows you know and market Square heroes (two of my favourites), I only vaguely remember bits of the rest of the show

They were superb

Anyone have any similar recollection ?

I just happened to catch it on YouTube,
It was released a few days ago and it’s on Apple I tunes .
I think it’s really good ,it sort of reminds me of The crow and the nightingale ?

How Marillion's eighth album brought the curtain down on their time at EMI and set the band up for the rest of their career...

In case anyone was wondering, it was a joke (they were a fictional band like Spinal Tap created by the guys behind The Young Ones).