MIKE OLDFIELD’S Tubular Bells is perhaps the most unlikely smash hit record ever to be released: the sprawling Celtic-folk-rock opus shot to #1 in album charts around the world in 1973-74, throwing its young composer into the international spotlight and kickstarting Richard Branson’s Virgin music empire.
Now, 45 years later, prodigious Australian multi-instrumentalists Daniel Holdsworth and Tom Bamford have arranged its entire score to be played by just the two of them in a unique theatrical performance, bringing to life the progressive masterpiece with all of its multi-layered madness and subtle charms intact. Well… almost.
That’s the flawed beauty of this ambitious enterprise, which I witnessed amongst an almost full house at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank – a step up from the much smaller Union Chapel which the act played a few years ago in an earlier incarnation (founding member Aidan Roberts since taking an extended time out after becoming a father back home in Sydney).
New boy Bamford is equal to the task though: both he and Holdsworth dashing about the stage to play their multiple parts on a myriad of twenty instruments, including glockenspiel, flute, keyboards, drums, a selection of electric and acoustic guitars, and of course the titular tubular bells looming centre-stage behind the pair throughout the performance.
What adds a note of jeopardy to the otherwise melodious flurry is the ever-present risk of a bum note being played during a live-looped sequence of guitar (the multi-layered format popularised by Ed Sheeran) which then can’t be erased so you hear it returning with each new sequence, with the performing pair at pains to work around it.
![tubular bells for two closer up](https://www.australiantimes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/tubular-bells-for-two-2-470x313.jpg)
The half-time break when it arrives provides some welcome respite for all concerned, before ‘side two’ commences and plays out to a much more satisfyingly rocking conclusion.
Lovers of Mike Oldfield’s masterwork can’t fail to be enthralled by this clever, intricately-choreographed rendering, but even if you’re unacquainted with the album through relative youthfulness, you’ll definitely be inspired to give it a whirl after seeing this show.
For details on the rest of the May UK tour, which calls at Watford, Wycombe and Milton Keynes among others, go to www.tubularbellsfortwo.com