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on dollar enterprise we know today although the current touring production has the composer s blessing the posters outside the venue make it perfectly clear he is not directly involved and will not be appearing oldfield officially retired from performing some years ago after all but this is far from just another tribute act the task of putting this extravaganza together fell to musical director and pianist robin a smith he has worked with oldfield extensively over the decades including at the 2012 london olympics opening ceremony and he understands this music better than almost anyone else the first half of the show comprised sections of tubular bells ii 1992 and tubular bells iii 1998 faultlessly performed though they were i suspect many in the audience were unfamiliar with these less famous sequels and were itching for the main event to begin instantly recognisable however was the 1983 single moonlight shadow which closed the first half it featured a terrific vocal performance from melbourne s jameson butler who was heard to great effect almost throughout the entire programme watching the eight people on stage meticulously working through this remarkable music sometimes delicately often with sledgehammer ferocity really drives home just what an incredible achievement the original tubular bells album was mike oldfield was just 19 years old when he recorded it largely alone there were no computers back then the record was painstakingly pieced together via a thousand overdubs and razor blade tape edits in glorious analogue and let s say it again he played it all by himself conducted and directed with a series of elaborate hand signals by the charmingly eccentric smith on piano and keyboards the sprawling ensemble comprising two guitars mandolin electric cello bass guitar two drummers percussionists and vocals looked mightily impressive occupying the entire stage as a guitar spotter i was thrilled to see that ruben alvarez and maxime obadia were playing period correct instruments i won t bore you with the minutia but onstage were a trio of fenders a prs and a gibson sg junior all of them identical to the guitars used by oldfield himself it was a nice tribute and a lovely touch of detail jack davies impressed with his work on an actual set of tubular bells positioned high up and placed centre stage of course while second drummer percussionist will miles beefed up the sound on a full rock drum kit when it came to the famous finale where the instruments are introduced one by one the bassist whose name i didn t catch held down that interminable wrist aching motif admirably as for the voice over it sounded like a tape of the original 1973 vivian stanshall narration was used as an encore we were treated to a manic version of sailor s hornpipe which ends side two of the original tubular bells album other than perhaps the bassist the hardest working man on the night appeared to be the long haired guitar tech he was almost literally run off his feet fixing assorted technical issues and emerging from the wings every few minutes with a fresh instrument after re tuning what seemed like a dozen electric and acoustic guitars plus mandolins the fact that from where we were sitting up in the gods he bore more than a passing resemblance to neil from tv s the young ones was just a happy bonus i ve long been convinced that the key to tubular bells success is that missing beat in the introductory section they may not be aware of it but the listener is subconsciously waiting for the extra beat to arrive enabling the piece to resolve but of course due to that devilish 15 8 time signature it never does arrive the opening passage runs for only four minutes but it creates an unsettling air of tension piquing the interest and setting the scene for the delights to come which is exactly why it worked so well as the main theme to the exorcist 53 years after it was recorded mike oldfield s magnum opus has become akin to modern classical music there have been numerous versions over the years live and on record and it is still regularly played by rock bands and orchestras around the world tonight we heard a truly great performance long may it continue at june 08 2026 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels mike oldfield perth monday 11 may 2026 ralph mctell somewhere down the road farewell tour perth w australia may 9 2026 when i last saw ralph mctell in 2007 he opened his set with streets of london undoubtedly his biggest song let s get that out of the way he quipped almost as if the legendary number had become a millstone around his neck but tonight was very different streets was saved for the big finale where it was received with heartfelt audience participation followed by a prolonged standing ovation this side of glastonbury it s been a while since i ve heard a crowd sing along with such gusto that could be because as the name suggests after no fewer than 16 visits since 1976 this looks likely to be mctell s final australian tour and he clearly felt the old war horse of a song deserved to go out with dignity just like the performer himself in fact ralph and i go back a long way i first saw him play at the legendary soho basement folk club les cousins at the tail end of the 60s at the other end of the show biz scale i was also there at the royal albert hall in may 1976 for the concert which became the uk half of the ralph albert and sydney album but after 60 years treading the boards the small halls and folk clubs remain mctell s spiritual home and the compact 500 seat state theatre centre of wa in the heart of perth was the perfect venue to enjoy his intimate songs and stories possibly for the last time arriving onstage looking like an extra from the tv show death in paradise in a white suit with matching shoes he seemed a little overdressed for the occasion but at age 81 i guess he s long outgrown the folksingers uniform of jeans and work shirt reassuringly his trademark gibson j50 guitar a model he s been associated with since his earliest days was present and correct a truly great finger picking guitarist he made it all look so easy as he took us on a leisurely stroll through his back catalogue throwing in a handful of new songs along the way each one prefaced with a humorous or heart warming story sometimes both the mid 70s was ralph s most fertile songwriting period and from clare to here from the right side up album remains one of his finest tunes it tells of a homesick irishman he met while working the building sites around london aside from streets of london the oldest song of the night was mrs adlam s angels both from mctell s 1969 second album spiral staircase like all his early albums it was originally released on the folk centric transatlantic label alongside classics by ralph s contemporaries bert jansch john renbourn and the like the giant grand piano which had lurked ominously in the shadows for much of the set was finally employed for two of his strongest songs old brown dog and the eternally moving naomi a lengthy preamble explained the latter was written for ralph s grandparents and i noticed a few moist eyes being quietly dabbed with most of tonight s elderly audience probably now grandparents themselves the song seemed to take on an added poignancy judging by the assorted british accents i heard in the bar i d estimate a sizable chunk of tonight s crowd were ex pat poms in which case there was really no need for the lengthy explanation of the word charabanc from the opening line of maginot waltz after a short interval the second half kicked off with kenny the kangaroo from the 1983 children s tv show alphabet zoo presented by ralph and nerys hughes she of the liver birds fame it was all a bit twee and the only minor downside of the evening it was my manager s idea said a clearly embarrassed ralph by way of mitigation much better was the girl from the hiring fair 40 years ago mctell donated this powerful song to fairport convention for their comeback album gladys leap but it has always remained a fixture of his own set and seldom sounded better than tonight s performance his knack of capturing the imagery of a bygone era and translating it into song is a rare gift weirdly considering the venue is located smack dab in the late night clubbing area of the city they had imposed a 10pm curfew leading to a somewhat rushed ending to the concert before starting the aforementioned streets of london closer ralph had pre warned us there would be no encore and due to time constraints possibly no meet and greet afterwards either as usually happens at intimate concerts such as this sure enough he hurriedly exited the stage with the applause still ringing out and his final perth show was over before hanging up his gibson for the final time ralph still has some european dates to play including as he told us a short tour of ireland but if this really was his last aussie visit let s remember it for the great music he gave us over the decades and not for that somewhat abrupt finale footnote during the flight from sydney to adelaide on may 16 ralph s gibson j50 suffered a catastrophic broken headstock courtesy of the airline and an emergency replacement guitar was hastily found in order to complete the last date of the tour as he later said on his facebook page that s show business at may 11 2026 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels perth ralph mctell monday 23 march 2026 double diamonds famous double albums sold individually by stuart penney we all love records right despite being declared dead and buried at the turn of the century vinyl is back with a vengeance tactile with proper decent sized artwork lps really are the most desirable way to listen to recorded music add to this the powerful nostalgia factor and the lure of old records is irresistible on the minus side records are extremely easy to damage and need to be handled with great care they are also bulky ridiculously heavy in quantity and prohibitively costly to ship all of which explains why they were so easily superseded by the soulless cd but against the odds lp records have made a lazarus like comeback in recent years you may have noticed that new vinyls as the kids of today like to call their records are also exorbitantly expensive often retailing at more than two or three times the price of a cd but then records have never been especially cheap except perhaps for that brief period in the early 2000s when those pesky cds were poised to take over the world and vinyl was experiencing a worldwide slump in popularity lps have always been costly ok they were always much cheaper in america than in the uk and europe but that s another story for another time come with me now back to the late 60s when records were king this was a time when our favourite artists were getting serious about their art and some of the more cerebral musicians pete townshend i m looking at you felt that a solitary lp was simply not enough to contain the fruits of their genius that s when we started to see double albums appearing by some of the biggest names in rock ok bob dylan and frank zappa had got there first in a 1966 photo finish with blonde on blonde and freak out respectively but as they did with so many other things it was the beatles who really kick started the double lp craze in 1968 with the beatles aka the white album the problem was late 60s uk double albums often retailed at literally twice the price of a single lp making them unaffordable for many record buyers while regular single albums hovered around the 40 shillings 2 mark some double sets jimi hendrix s electric ladyland for example sold for 85 shillings 4 25 that translates to a not insignificant 62 today polydor was one of the main offenders in the lp price wars and in 1968 they came up with the bright idea of splitting some of their popular double albums and offering them as individual single lps presumably to soften the financial blow the theory seemed to be you could buy one half now and the other half next payday or perhaps you d decided you didn t like 50 of the album who knows it was a curious phenomenon which must have made some kind of sense in the polydor boardroom at the time although it seems little short of madness from this distance even though the truncated versions often had new and interesting artwork it was a flawed artistic and commercial concept which simply didn t catch on for obvious reasons but for a brief period we saw big name uk double album sets on polydor and their affiliated family of labels track and elektra such as tommy electric ladyland and wheels of fire sold individually as parts 1 and 2 it had been tried before of course jazz folk and classical multi lp sets had long been sold in separate volumes but it was a brand new innovation in rock and pop this is not a comprehensive list of late 60s double albums by the way just a handful that were offered as both 2 lp sets and single albums donovan a gift from a flower to a garden epic 1967 the earliest rock double album i remember being split and offered individually was donovan s 1967 a gift from a flower to a garden unlike most of the other titles mentioned here this elaborate box set was not a polydor release it appeared on the epic label in the us and on pye records in britain when originally issued in the uk in early 1968 agfaftag retailed at 3 17s 6d 3 88 twice the price of a single lp at that time and the equivalent of almost 60 today the british release was delayed for three months so in late 1967 i bit the bullet and bought a us epic pressing at a london import store for 5 which converts to a wallet worrying 81 in 2026 that was more than 50 of my weekly wage at the time in america the two lps were also sold individually as wear your love like heaven and for little ones in fact in some territories eg australia s e asia and parts of mainland europe the box set was considered too extravagant for local release and the a gift from a flower to a garden material was only ever sold as these two separate records the pair were scheduled to be issued this way in britain and were even allocated pye catalogue numbers but the release was cancelled at the eleventh hour japan didn t get the individual lps but typically went one better and in 1969 issued the agfaftag double album not in a box but in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with a unique 12 page colour booklet featuring lyrics in japanese and english and photos some taken from the donovan s greatest hits album insert booklet others unseen elsewhere in december 2023 donovan re released a signed limited edition of the mono vinyl box set with all inserts through his website the asking price was an eye watering 180 the sleeve design of for little ones was taken from the inside tray of the agfaftag box while the artwork for wear your love like heaven appeared nowhere else at the time both covers were photographed by karl ferris ...