In 1987, Marillion headlined the inaugural Leysin Festival, an outdoor event held at Centre des Sports in Lesyin, an alpine resort village at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Now, nearly 40 years on, festival organisers have released their official archive film of Fish & Co.'s performance, which comprises 90 minutes of previously unseen, high-quality, pro-shot footage from the band's Clutching At Straws tour.
The Leysin film was shot two days before Sugar Mice was released as a single, and seven days before Marillion played at the outdoor stage in Loreley, St. Goarshausen, Germany, a show that was released as the Live From Loreley concert movie in late 1997, and as a live album in 2009. It features an almost identical tracklist, with just Script For A Jester's Tear and White Russians not making the Lesyin set. Full setlist below.
Clutching At Straws had been released in June 1987, and peaked at No.2 on the UK album charts – one place below Misplaced Childhood, which had been driven to the top spot by Marillion's two most successful singles, Kayleigh and Lavender. But not all was well.
"We weren’t getting on, and by the time we got to the tour, it was intolerable," Fish told Prog. "The tour bus was not a good place to be. We all sat in different positions, nobody saying anything. The gang mentality had broken up."
A year later, he was gone.
Marillion setlist: Lesyin Festival, July 11, 1987
Slainte Mhath
Assassing
Sugar Mice
Fugazi
Hotel Hobbies
Warm Wet Circles
That Time Of The Night
Kayleigh
Lavender
Bitter Suite
Heart Of Lothian
The Last Straw
Incommunicado
Market Square Heroes
