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9th, East Retford, Porterhouse
On the time when Marillion played in East Retford the race between the record companies of who was going to sign Marillion was getting close. As Mick Pointer tells, the record company executives themselves were on the road watching (and trying to impress) Marillion: "I remember being picked up from a gig in Retford we did once by Tony Stratton Smith, I think me and Fish, we had a ride back from the Midlands in a Rolls Royce. And we get into this Rolls Royce, you know, with Tony Stratton Smith, I'm sure it was Tony Stratton Smith and his assistant I can't remember what the guys name was, but Charisma Records, you know "My God, Genesis are on Charisma", and "This is Tony Stratton Smith, My God, I'm in a Rolls Royce". I remember the air conditioning in the car, and the armrests, and I was thinking "I can cope with this". You know, we drove there in a van smelling of piss, and we come back in a Rolls Royce, so I thought, "Yeah, I can cope with some of this"." (Claus Nygaard, Private interview with Mick Pointer).

12th, Manchester, The Gallery
This was Marillion's Manchester debut gig. Although Fish's mike blew halfway through the first number "He Knows You Know" they managed to sort things out and played the remaining of the set which consisted of "She Chameleon", "The Web", "Chelsea Monday", "Garden Party", "Three Boats Down from the Candy", "Forgotten Sons" and "Market Square Heroes".

14th, Coventry, General Wolfe Club
16th, Cambridge, Sound Cellar
17th, Bath, Moles Club
This night's set did not include any new numbers and the only change from the gig played in Manchester five days prior was that "Garden Party" and "Chelsea Monday" switched positions. Suddenly being in Bath, and being in a band, may have been special to Mark Kelly as he lived here for nearly a year studying at the Academy of Art before he moved back to Romford and joined first Split Grass then Chemical Alice and finally Marillion. Mark's memory of their trip to Bath, though, has more to do with the band getting into the backstage area at the nearby festival grounds the next day: "I remember that gig, and I remember what happened afterwards as well. We went to Shepton Mal afterwards cause there was the first Womad festival happening the one that Peter Gabriel organised. And we told them we were playing, and they let us into the backstage area, but we weren't, we hadn't been asked, but there was sone stuff in the paper that we were playing, so the guy on the gate said: "Yeah, I've seen it, you're in the paper, yeah, you're playing, okay", and then let us in." When they returned to Aylesbury Marillion had the following week off in which they could celebrate Mick Pointer's birthday on 22nd July. Being the oldest in the band he turned 26. Playing at the Moles Club for the first time Marillion of course had no idea that they would preview material from their "Holidays in Eden" album in the same club nearly a decade later, and that with Steve Hogarth on vocal as replacement for Fish. Previews they would actually release as b-sides. Mark Kelly: "We went back there in 1991 when we were writing Holidays in Eden, cause there's a little studio upstairs, so we played the club just to try out some new songs, and we recorded Splintering Heart, This Town, and all that stuff." (Claus Nygaard, Private interview with Mark Kelly).

21st, Sheffield, Limit Club
24th, Milton Keynes, Starting Gate
The return to their stronghold in Milton Keynes was celebrated by including "Grendel" in a set, otherwise identical to the one they had been touring with during the previous month. The lack of a première songs for the Starting Gate audience, which had been a standing procedure through 1981, was then made good by playing one of the longest sets for quite a while. The track listing was "He Knows You Know", "She Chameleon", "The Web", "Grendel", "Garden Party", "Chelsea Monday", "Three Boats Down from the Candy" with the encores being not only "Forgotten Sons" and "Market Square Heroes" but also "Margaret".

IN THE RECORDING STUDIO
26th, London, EMI House, Manchester Square
27th, London, EMI House, Manchester Square
During the past year or so the band had, with no luck, been contacting lots of record companies for the purpose of getting a record contract. By continous gigging Marillion had earned a bigger following - even though they played "music left over from the 70'ies" - which all of a sudden raised the eyes of various record labels. Having been negotiating seriously with labels like Geffen, Phonogram, American Atlantic, and Charisma during the early summer and being on the verge of signing a contract, Marillion were approached by EMI, which had turned them down earlier, and were now asked to do an in-house demo in the EMI-studios. For Mick Pointer the interest from the record companies came almost as a surprise, and almost surprising is it that the contract they were to sign with EMI didn't make them millionaires: "There was a period where, as with all bands, nobody wants to know you to start with, and then we had every major record label in the country chasing us offering us vast sums of money. You know, we were young, you know, we had no idea where this money came from, what it meant, I never saw any of it, I don't think anybody did really." (Claus Nygaard, Private interview with Mick Pointer).

The band were of course interested in getting under the wings of such a big company and they spend two days recording demos of "Market Square Heroes", "He Knows You Know" and "Chelsea Monday" as judgement for their future career under the terms of EMI under the directions of in house producer Danny Dawson. "Chelsea Monday" and "He Knows You Know" are included on the bonus disc following the 1997 remastered edition of the "Script for a Jester's Tear" album. On this demo version of "Chelsea Monday" the monologue following the guitar solo is different to the original version: "Hello, John. Have you seen the Standard today? Fished some young chick out of the Thames. Said she was gonna be an actress or something. She was really beautiful. They don't know where she came from or where she was going. The funny thing was she had a smile on her face. Funny thing. Funny thing. Funny thing".