Twelfth Night - Page 3

Geoff Mann went on to train as an Anglican priest. He continued to gig and record with his new band The Bond, who I saw live a couple of times. To my tastes, they lacked the musical scope of Twelfth Night, and it seemed to me that Geoff had lost his lyrical edge too. Sadly Geoff was to die of cancer a few years after being ordained. Who knows where his career might have gone?

Twelfth Night themselves regrouped with new singer Andy Sears, and recorded the mini-album "Art and Illusion". By now the sound was a little smoother and more commercial, but still retained enough depth to be interesting. In 1985 they finally signed to a major label, Virgin Records.

Sadly, the resulting album, titled simply "Twelfth Night" was a mess, musically, and a major disappointment. It's as if they couldn't decide whether to be Pink Floyd or Duran Duran. If it was an attempt at commercialism, it was a dismal failure. Only "Take a Look" came together and reflected the Twelfth Night of old. It didn't sell, and year later the label dropped them. The band split.

But this wasn't quite the end of the story. In 1988, the Geoff Mann lineup briefly reunited in the studio to record "The Collector", an 18-minute epic played live but never recorded. This was to appear on the 1988 compilation "Collector's Item", a retrospective look at the band's entire career.

(An earlier version of this appeared on Where Worlds Collide)

Article Author: Tim Hall

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