FISH, the icon of progressive rock and much acclaimed artist, singer, musician, front man and lyricist extraordinaire is announcing his farewell ‘Road To The Isles’ tour, bidding a final goodbye to the music industry after four decades of hits, memories and touring. He will be touring across both Europe and the UK, with the mainland Europe dates being announced today.
The European dates kick off in Dudlange, Luxembourg on October 2nd 2024, finishing in Berlin Germany on November 3rd 2024. Tickets for these shows will be on-sale to the general public on Feb 2nd 2024. A full set of UK dates will take place in February / March 2025 and will be announced on February 27th with UK on-sale March 1st 2024.
"Nominating a tour as a 'farewell tour' has a certain amount of gravitas,” comments FISH, “and I’m so glad that I have managed to bring together a 'best of' line up of musicians from across my live career to come out on the bus with me on my final sortie out on the road. They're not just highly talented musicians but old friends and co-writers of some of the finest songs I've released in the 35 years as a solo artist. It feels more like a Hollywood movie of veterans getting back together for one final mission rather than a rock and roll tour and the personalities and characters involved will ensure it's going to be fun both on and off stage."
To introduce the cast
Keyboard player Mickey Simmonds was the principal co-writer on Fish's first solo albums 'Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors' and ‘Internal Exile', both of which are being remixed by Calum Malcolm for a major re-release in 2024, while guitarist Robin Boult was in the touring band from that period and a regular across many live line ups. Robin has been a regular co-writer and studio session musician with Fish since 1991 and was involved on the last three albums ‘13th Star', ‘Feast of Consequences' and the globally-praised final album 'Weltschmerz' which Fish co-wrote with Steve Vantsis.
Steve has been Fish's main music collaborator for a number of years and will be playing bass on the tour, with long term drummer Gavin Griffiths returning to the circus to create a renowned and formidable rhythm section. The band will be augmented with acclaimed backing vocalist Elisabeth Troy Antwi who has sung on a number of Fish's albums and with whom he duetted on 'Incomplete' the song they wrote and performed together on the 'Raingods With Zippos' album and tour.
Although the members of the 2024/2025 touring band have never all performed together on stage before, Mickey, Robin and Steve were part of one of the most dynamic and powerful outfits Fish has ever taken out on the road on the 'Sunsets on Empire' tour in 1997. The 2024/2025 line up promises this and much more with a wealth of material to choose from across Fish's expansive and diverse catalogue of 11 solo albums and four with his previous band Marillion.
"I really didn't want to go out on my farewell tour with a group of strangers or hired guns and only getting to know new people who I'd be saying goodbye to after only a few weeks. The tour is not going to be one of those endless farewell tours that spin round for months and months. I always wanted it relatively concise yet long enough to go out and enjoy being on stage, and on the road, before it got to be tiring and exhausting. It has to be a fun affair and this band ticks all the boxes on every level. Everyone in the line-up has at some point or another been in the studio or on the road with me performing songs from across the solo catalogue and beyond.
“I don't want to be sticking to the same setlist every night and there are so many potential songs for the set we all felt that having a moveable feast was the way forward. We are rehearsing around 25 -30 songs to give us enough material to bring in and out of the set when we want, which keeps it interesting and fun for us as well as the fans who won't know what songs will be played on the night they come to. The setlist will be covering 12 solo albums and of course there will be material from my time with Marillion. There's a few epics from that time that I'd be remiss if I ignored and to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to revisiting a couple of those tracks. The band members have all played them at one time or another and are all more than capable of delivering fantastic renditions across the board. It's going to be actually quite exciting revisiting a lot of the material with this historical line-up."
Moving On
The ‘Road to the Isles’ tour is inspired by the fact that Fish and his wife Simone are retiring to a croft they have taken over on an island in the Outer Hebrides. They are permanently moving to the Western Isles at the end of this year and Fish is selling the former recording studio and house in Haddington, East Lothian in May after living there since he left Marillion in 1988.
“It's going to be sad in some ways to leave East Lothian after so many years and having written, recorded and created so much here at the Studio. All my solo albums apart from 'Vigil' were recorded in this building. It was a strange feeling recently sifting through the demo material for the 2024 'Vigil' and ‘Internal' re-releases and listening to the early versions of those songs that were written here soon after I moved to Haddington. I'll be leaving behind a lot of memories in the house and the garden where I've lived since 1988 and it will always hold a special place in my life. The croft however is a completely new adventure and one my wife and I are excitedly looking forward to.
“We have been working on our move for the last year, renovating the croft house and literally preparing the ground for our new home. It's all been part of a plan I've been following since 2015 and when we came across the island in 2022, Simone and I fell in love with the area and we both knew that this was where we wanted to be. I'll still be creating and writing on the island and there's that elusive autobiography to be written as well as other projects involving music in some shape or another. With the 'Farewell Tour' I'm calling a halt to 'big band' road work and traversing the globe in the back of a bus and I'm going to be concentrating on growing vegetables and looking after sheep while Simone follows her own dreams and ambitions on the croft. It's a massive change in our lives but we both feel it's the right time to take this step and make the move."
"When I was looking for a name for the farewell tour I obviously had the move to the western Isles in my mind and I remembered an old song by Scottish singer Andy Stewart that I played repeatedly on my mum and dad's old RCA Victor record player back in the 60's. I never really knew what the lyric was about but the tune popped in my head when we were putting the tour together and I managed to find the song online. It turned out to have a lot more history behind it and I discovered it was all about a young man returning home to the western isles and his journey across Scotland. ‘Road To The Isles’ was a perfect and apt title for the tour and it inspired me to get in touch with my sleeve artist Mark Wilkinson to revisit the 'Internal Exile' album cover from 1991 and reinvent it using images from across my solo albums, based around a portrait photo by original photographer Kenneth Martin taken of me as the singer in 2023, about to become a crofter.
“There's a great sense of circles being closed with all aspects of the tour and the album releases this year and I'm enjoying the sense of completion that it brings to this current stage in my life as I literally move on to new pastures. It's a wonderful feeling."
The 24 date European leg of the tour starts in Luxembourg on October 2nd 2024 and traverses five shows in Holland, seven in Germany, four in Poland, two in Norway, two in Sweden and a show in each of Denmark, Switzerland and Austria.
Following a short break Fish will embark upon the 13 date UK leg of the tour commencing in his home Haddington Corn Exchange on February 19th 2025 and finishing up with a rousing last ever show at the Glasgow O2 Academy on Sunday March 9th 2025.
At that point, we can finally say that Fish has well and truly left the building!
‘ROAD TO THE ISLES’ EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
Wed Oct 2nd 2024 Centre Culturel Opderschmelz, DUDELANGE, LUX
Fri Oct 4th 2024 Muziekgieterij, MAASTRICHT, NL
Sat Oct 5th 2024 Muziekcentrum, ENSCHEDE, NL
Sun Oct 6th 2024 Oosterpoort, GRONINGEN, NL
Tues Oct 8th 2024 Tivoli Vrendenburg, UTRECHT, NL
Wed Oct 9th 2024 Tivoli Vrendenburg, UTRECHT, NL
Thurs Oct 10th 2024 Grosse Freiheit 36, HAMBURG, DE
Fri Oct 11th 2024 Carlswerk Viktoria, COLOGNE, DE
Sun Oct 13th 2024 Im Wisemaan, STUTTGART, DE
Tues Oct 15th 2024 Volkhaus, ZURICH, CH
Wed Oct 16th 2024 Muffathalle, MUNICH, DE
Thurs Oct 17th 2024 Arena, WIEN, AU
Sat Oct 19th 2024 A2, WROCLAW, PL
Sun Oct 20th 2024 Progeresjam, WARSAW, PL
Mon Oct 21st 2024 Studio, KRAKOW, PL
Tues Oct 22nd 2024 Srtary Manez, GDANSK, PL
Thurs Oct 24th 2024 Rockefellar, OSLO, NOR
Sat Oct 26th 2024 Byscenen, TRONDHEIM, NOR
Mon Oct 28th 2024 Pustervik, GOTHENBURG, SW
Tues Oct 29th 2024 Berns, STOCKHOLM, SW
Wed Oct 30th 2024 Amager Bio, COPENHAGEN, DK
Fri Nov 1st 2024 Alter Schlachtof, DRESDEN, DE
Sat Nov 2nd 2024 Tollhaus, KARLSRUHE, DE
Sun Nov 3rd 2024 Metropol, BERLIN, DE
Footnote
'Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors' and 'Internal Exile' both remixed by Calum Malcolm in 2024, will be available in a 4 audio CD and a BluRay disc set containing Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes, documentaries and full concerts from 90-91 all in a 100 page hardback book, in a slipcase featuring extensive sleeve notes by Fish, artwork by Mark Wilkinson and photos and images from the periods. Sleeve designs are by Steve Vantsis .The deluxe versions will be exclusively available on fishmusic.scot and fishmusic.eu from April 2024 together with special vinyl editions of both the albums mastered at half speed by Barry Grint at Air studios and manufactured by Seabass vinyl in Scotland.
Currently available: the deluxe triple vinyl box sets of 'Feast of Consequences' and '13th Star' featuring 3 x 180gm vinyl discs and 12 inch full colour booklets and inserts in an engineered cardboard box and the deluxe CD/Blu Ray version of '13th Star' with a 2023 remix by Calum Malcolm , 3 CD's featuring the remix/original demos and live tracks together with a Blu ray disc with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes , documentaries and other bonus material all in a hardback book with slipcase featuring extensive sleeve notes by Fish, artwork by Mark Wilkinson and previously unseen photos and images. Sleeve Designs by Steve Vantsis.
More information including track lists on the above titles can be found at www.fishmusic.scot
and www.fishmusic.eu
