Two young Aussies, smashed Edinburgh Festival last Summer with their daring and dynamic live performance of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, which celebrates 40 years since its release this year.
Tubular Bells For Two
The critically acclaimed sell-out Edinburgh Fringe show recreates the iconic album live onstage with a unique energetic performance from these two multi-talented musicians.
Tubular bells usually requires a full orchestra for live performance, but Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts create a stellar sound capturing the soul and emotion of the album with just the two of them literally leaping between instruments for this fast paced hour long epic musical journey.
Amongst the vast collection of instruments onstage are keyboards, umpteen guitars, bass, mandolin, glockenspiel and loop pedals and of course tubular bells.
Tubular Bells ‘for Two’ started as an idea conjured up over a bottle of wine by old school friends Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts from the Blue Mountains in NSW, Australia. After arranging the music by ear on acoustic guitars, more instruments started to be added and the show was created.
Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells was released on 25th May 1973 by the then newly formed Virgin Records. Despite many people in the music industry considering the work ‘unmarketable’ the album reached No.1 in charts around the world, selling in excess of 15 million copies – much of its early success lay in the support from the late John Peel: ‘It’s called Tubular Bells. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life” he said on playing the album in its entirety on Radio 1.
Branson had to give Mike Oldfield his Bentley to coax him into premiering a live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on June 25th 1973. Tubular Bells ‘for Two’ will also mark this anniversary by returning to the Southbank (Wonderground) on June 25th 2013 for one further London performance.
The music was famously used for the soundtrack for the horror movie The Exorcist and is now enjoying a revival in popularity kicked started by its use in the 2012 London Olympic Opening Ceremony.
A full UK tour starts in Cardiff on May 22nd and runs through to end of August 2013. Full details of tour dates can be found on the website. London premiere 25th May at Union Chapel.
www.tubularbellsfortwo.co.uk
Watch the Noise11 interview with Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts here:
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