13 November 2008
Happiness From The Road
 
 
Hello from the 3 of us left here at the Racket Club. We've been keeping close tabs on the tour - and for the first time, so can you! The Happiness On The Road Live Series is proving very popular - already 3 shows from this tour (well, this WEEK!) are available to download exclusively through our website... and there's plenty more to come!
Whether you want a memento of the gig you've just been to (or where you were proposed to!) or if you're unable to make this leg of the tour, it's a great way to see what Happiness is the Road sounds like ON the road.
All the details and most of your questions are answered AND the full list of available shows and set lists are at www.marillion.com/shop/music/hotr.htm
The Web Fan Club Annual Christmas CD
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Web Christmas CD, so we've come up with something extra-special to celebrate. In recent years, most have been compilations of live tracks and the occasional b-side, sound clip, or acoustic version. This year's CD, however, is made up of BRAND NEW music that you've NEVER heard before!
During the writing sessions for "Happiness is the Road" producer Mike Hunter recorded the band’s daily jam sessions, editing the best bits and ideas into a more coherent shape, and then re-presenting them to the band for further development. The majority of them became the songs you hear on the new album; but what we're giving you on this year's Christmas CD is a collection of some of the best UN-USED jams.
As Mike was going through the jams for this CD, though, he had an inspired thought and began arranging the more 'seasonal'-sounding ones into a sonic poem, using Dylan Thomas's reading of his "A Child's Christmas in Wales" as a common thematic element. The band loved the idea of this, so h re-recorded the words and Mike arranged the music for this very special project.
Head over to www.marillion.com/web and joining your local Web Fan Club now so you don't miss out!
Early Stages Box Set
We're getting a fair few emails asking about the availability of the 'Early Stages' box set and pre-orders of these from Racket Records.
Racket Records has not received stock of this item from EMI yet, so unfortunately cannot send them out until we DO have them.
The official release date for this title is 17 November, and while we've also had reports of some retailers shipping them early, we expect our stock to arrive and begin shipping from the release date (next Monday).
Also, due to demand, we have had to make more cover art prints for the band to sign; as they are on tour this is proving a slow process, but we will be shipping ALL autographed prints SEPARATELY when the band get back at the end of the month as not to delay receipt of your boxed set orders (when the things are finally delivered, of course)!
More Updates from Racket Records
With the band and the majority of staff on tour with Marillion, the skeleton crew at Racket are frantically piling through your orders and emails. We are still also getting reports of late pre-orders arriving across North America and Eastern Asia, so if you are in those areas we hope it would be with you by now.
We also wanted to mention that we have found that a batch of the Deluxe editions from the manufacturer were supplied to us sealed, but for some reason were missing CD1 "Essence". Many of you have been in touch with us already and we're sending out replacement discs. If you've fallen foul of one of these unfortunate manufacturing errors please contact us with your full name and order number and we'll be happy to help.
We'd also like to include a friendly reminder that we're not a massive organisation - it may take a day or two for us to get to your email (and we're also not staffed on the weekends), so we do very much appreciate your patience during this busy period.
A final update for you to those who've been asking for the fab new winter fleece jackets: the full range of Happiness is the Road album merchandise (as sold on the tour!) will also be available very soon from www.marillion.com/shop