by Alison Henderson
Saturday saw the end of the final act in the life and times of English prog band Twelfth Night after 33 dramatic years of recording and touring.
This took the form of a concert performed in front of friends, fans and family at, very aptly, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s theatre at the Barbican in London.
Twelfth Night first appeared on the scene around about the time the label neo-prog was invented to describe other emergent bands such as IQ, Pallas and of course, Marillion as well as themselves.
However, early claims to fame included appearances on the very first David Essex Showcase on television in 1982 and later on the Old Grey Whistle Test. But they carved their own special niche through the song writing combination of lead singer Geoff Mann and multi-instrumentalist Clive Mitten which yielded a trove of distinctive songs, many of which were revisited on Saturday.
The history of the band is thoroughly documented in Play On (The Authorised Biography of Twelfth Night) by Andrew Wild and charts a band career that has been scarred by death (of Mann from cancer in 1993), marred by poor record sales and finally, it reached an untenable situation where two different factions were going out on the road playing the music.
So the decision was made to make Danfest in Leicester last month, the final public appearance by one of the factions, the Cryptic Clues who also played the Peel in Kingston, London; the Summer’s End and Proguphoria festivals to much acclaim from critics and fans. Continue reading “Curtain Comes Down on Twelfth Night”
Progarchy 