IQ - Islington Assembly Hall

I’d long believed that I’d missed out on seeing many of the leading lights of the neo-prog era but after extensive research into all the gigs I’ve attended I discovered that I saw IQ and Pendragon supporting The Enid at the Dominion Theatre on 12th November 1983. The reason I’d forgotten was that the ticket stub doesn’t name any support acts for that particular concert but I do remember The Enid’s performance quite well because Robert John Godfrey said some pretty terrible things about Marillion; I also recall that there were two support bands playing modern, intricate rock music with the second act a bit pop-proggy and therefore not as good as the opening group. Furthermore, I don’t know if I’ve been subconsciously affected by a number of on-line write-ups concerning the release of IQ’s debut album Tales from the Lush Attic but I have a feeling copies of the LP were available at the Dominion, and I didn’t buy one.
When it comes to actually buying the music, I plead guilty to latching on to the phenomenon rather late. I may have got to see IQ, Pendragon and Solstice as support acts but I missed out on Marillion, Twelfth Night and Pallas and the time spent in record stores during the 80s was for filling in gaps from the 70s. I’d been attempting to get to an IQ Christmas gig for some time but never quite made it due to other commitments. An event in September circumvented all obstacles and as a bonus, the Islington concert was advertised as a launch show for their new album Resistance.
Their previous album, 2014’s The Road of Bones had been well received and it was evident from the lengthening queue before the doors opened that the band retained a staunchly loyal following. 36 years had elapsed since I last saw them and in that period I’d picked up copies of the first two albums on pre-loved vinyl, got a 30th Anniversary edition of Tales from the Lush Attic on CD and a download of Dark Matter from 2004, so I hoped that I’d hear something familiar. Unsurprisingly, Resistance contributed to more than a third of the songs played that evening but the set list covered much of their previously recorded output, spanning debut album-live favourite Awake and Nervous, played as the second encore, Further Away from Ever (1993), Sleepless Incidental and the title track from Subterranea (1997), Sacred Sound from Dark Matter (2004), Ryker Skies from Frequency (2009) and From the Outside In, the title track and Until the End from The Road of Bones.
Apart from over-mixed bass for the first two songs, Resistance’s Alampandria and From the Outside In which prompted calls of ‘turn the bass down’ from a gentleman in front of me (who may have been Steve Bray, the ‘Stop Brexit’ crier from outside parliament, such was his delivery) the sound was well balanced and I had an exceptionally good view.
It’s obviously impossible to compare my original experience of the band with the tight outfit performing Resistance even though, following a number of shifts in line-up, the current conformation only varies from that in 1983 by one member, keyboard player Neil Durant filling the boots of Martin Orford. What I can say is that it was an excellent performance in a nice, friendly venue and I upgraded my download of Dark Matter to CD and indulged in a copy of The Road of Bones on CD.