Mike Oldfield — Tubular Bells 50th Anniversary Tour: Live At The R

Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in 2022, this concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the original Tubular Bells was recorded over 3 nights featuring music, dance and acrobatics by the Circa Contemporary Circus. Arranged by Robin Smith, the performance features music from Mike Oldfield’s groundbreaking original album, tracks from its follow-ups, alongside his hit single, Moonlight Shadow. This is a two-disc Blu-Ray release of the performance from Cleopatra/ MVD.

The set opens with a new piece written specially for the performance by Robin Smith, The Gem is a guitar-led instrumental that reminds me of later period Pink Floyd. Smith’s musical arrangement of the original source materials was excellent, giving the whole concert a contemporary feel that ensures it doesn’t feel dated or out of time. The band are excellent, the musicianship is top-notch throughout the whole performance, and it was great to hear Summit Day and Moonlight Shadow incorporated into the performance, however I would have preferred to have something from Ommadawn or Hergest Ridge included in place of The Gem and Summit Day. The performance of Tubular Bells itself is accompanied by the circus acrobats, which adds something to look at, however, doesn’t really do the music justice. I believe these anniversary shows were originally conceived as a ballet, which I think would have worked better.

Overall, the musical performance is very good, but Smith doesn’t always choose the best material available, whilst the acrobats show impressive feats of strength and balance but lack something in the visual department.

Disc Two adds an interesting feature-length documentary that explores the heritage of Tubular Bells and features interviews with the likes of Mike Oldfield and visionary record company exec, Richard Branson, the man who made Tubular Bells the debut release on his Virgin Records label back in 1972. In addition to this, the documentary is narrated by the effervescent Bill Nighy.

Tubular Bells 50th Anniversary Tour Live at the Royal Festival Hall is a very solid performance of a classic album, by some world-class musicians, however, I feel it could have been even more impressive with some better musical choices for the accompanying tracks, and I would have loved to have seen how the originally conceived ballet performance would have worked.