Adelaide Festival Centre. Dunstan Playhouse. 17 Feb 2017
First released in 1973, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells is one of the best known and more instantly recognisable pieces of modern music. Its early claim to fame was its opening piano solo being used in the soundtrack to film The Exorcist, also released in 1973.
At risk of becoming boring, it is worth commenting briefly on the composition first before singing the praises of this performance. Tubular Bells broadly comprises a suite of bright and catchy tunes that are subtly varied and played on a succession of instruments which gradually add together until the sound builds to a rich and detailed crescendo. For those of you, who are classically minded think of Ravel’s Bolero, which also features layer upon layer of music building on each other. Or, vice versa, think of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, in which the complexity of the sound diminishes (rather than increases), as instruments are gradually removed one by one as members of the orchestra leave the stage. What makes Tubular Bells special, in this type of musical composition, is that Mike Oldfield played the majority of the instruments himself and in the original recording he overdubbed himself to create the musical snowball racing downhill towards its climax.
So what makes this evening’s concert performance different? Simple. Two musicians play all instruments between them in real time. Simple? No way. This is miraculous and exciting stuff! Australian musicians Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts have played this concert hundreds of times around the world to consistent and richly deserved acclaim. What they do is more to be seen than it is to be heard.
Between them they play four electronic keyboards, six or seven electric and acoustic guitars at various tunings, a mandolin, drum kits, glockenspiel, mouth whistles, their own voices, and tubular bells of course. They also simultaneously operate with their hands and bare feet a bewildering array of samplers and loop pedals all joined together by metres and metres and metres of electrical cabling. The stage is full to overflowing, and everything is oh-so-carefully positioned. These guys have to move at near lightning speed from one instrument to the other to maintain continuity, and mistakes can and do happen.
A highlight of the performance was Holdsworth momentarily losing his way in the music and improvising on whatever instrument was at hand. The expression on his face was priceless with “OOPS” written large from ear to ear on his beaming smile. Roberts, possibly oblivious but entirely caught up in what he was doing, kept going and the capacity audience loved them both even more for it.
Their musicality was only eclipsed by their exhausting athleticism. This was remarkable stuff. It was my very great pleasure to have seen this show before and it only gets better.
If you haven’t seen these guys, look them up on YouTube but do see them when they next return to Adelaide. They are pure genius!
Kym Clayton
When: 17 Feb
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
