Marillion
City Hall,
Sheffield, England
February 15, 1988

Title: Seems Like We've Been Here Before - PAL
Catalog: Duley Digital - DD-M880215-D
Media: 2 DVD - 53:32 & 53:13
Video Source: Audience PAL video -> 1st gen PAL VHS ->
PAL Standalone DVD -> PAL DVD Remaster
Audio Source: Same

Disc 1:

01. The Thieving Magpie
02. Slainte Mhath
03. Assassing
04. White Russian
05. Sugar Mice
06. Fugazi
07. Hotel Hobbies
08. Warm Wet Circles
09. That Time of The Night

Disc 2:

01. Gis a Bun
02. Waterhole (Expresson Bongo)
03. Lords of the Backstage
04. Blind Curve
05. Childhood's End?
06. White Feather
07. Kayleigh
08. Lavender
09. Heart of Lothian
10. Incommunicado
11. Garden Party
12. Market Square Heroes

Fish confirms location of the gig several times during the show.

This concert was originally scheduled to be held on January 12, 1988. However, this concert and the Nottingham concert scheduled for January 13 were both postponed, and tacked onto the end of the tour, in February 1988. Apparently, the opening act performed in Sheffield, and then Fish came out from behind the stage curtain and in a croaky voice announced he would be unable to sing. All ticket stubs for the Sheffield gig read January 12, 1988, as these tickets were used to gain admission to the February 15 make up gig. This is why Fish talks about finally getting here, and thanking the fans for their patience, a couple of times during the show. Fish says that this is the last show of the tour, and that they won't be playing again for a long time. As it turns out, they were playing gigs again a month later, however at a more leisurely pace.

Production Notes:

The source of this production was a standalone DVD (2 discs) recording of a 1st gen copy of the master tape. This is a handheld audience film, shot from the center, but some way back and up from the stage. This film is actually quite good quality, considering the home video camera technology of that time. Many audience videos from that time period suffer from being a bit dark, but for the most part, this video does not suffer from that. Colors are good. The picture is a bit fuzzy, but this is not unusual for a video from 17 years ago, filmed indoors. Check the screenshots in the cover art for an idea what to expect. The filmer has a fairly steady hand for the most part, with some occassional wandering and security ducks. For the most part, the view is unobstructed, but you do see the occassional head, or person walking by in front of the camera.

The video on the DVDs I recieved required no editing, and therefore didn't require re-encoding. The original was in PAL format, and I felt it best to leave it in PAL format, to avoid re-encoding when it wasn't neccessary, thereby preserving the best quality.

The existing audio was quite flat, so I applied EQ to even out the mix, allowing all the instruments to be more clearly heard, and giving the recording a little "punch".

When there is less than an hour on each disc, I normally use PCM audio. However, the DVD format has a maximum bitrate, and due to the high bitrate used to encode the original video stream on the discs, using PCM audio would have given a combined bitrate exceeding the spec for maximum bitrate on a DVD. I did do a test build using PCM audio, and the disc played flawlessly in my Pioneer 578A. However, some of the lower quality players will stutter or drop frames if the spec is exceeded, so for the sake of compatibility, I encoded the audio in AC3 format, to keep the overall bitrate within the DVD spec.

No one will mistake this for a proshot recording, but given the era, this is a nice recording, with pretty nice picture and sound.

Duley - July 2005