CA6 – review on ‘’tubular bells by two’’
Daniel Holdsworth, 32, and Aidan Roberts, 34, sure did an amazing job with their performance of
tubular bells by Mike Oldfields. Tubular bells is Mike Oldfields first album, brought out in 1973. He
had written everything by himself, and managed to record most instruments by himself too. He had
to record over 20 instruments on his own, and them edit them together to create one long album,
with a playtime of over 48 minutes! Shortly after it was published it turned out to be very successful,
selling over 16 million copies worldwide.
Before I visited the show, I was sceptical about the possibility that they were able to play tubular
bells just the way that Mike Oldfields had made it. But they were about to prove me wrong.
The two young men, Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts, played this album, LIVE!!! They ran and
they flew about the stage running to all the different instruments they had to play, and for some
reason, they decided to go about barefooted, sometimes playing up to three instruments at the
same time! Using their skill, and some electric equipment they used on stage, they knew to play
Oldfields album with the slightest number of mistakes, truly a magnificent performance!
The performance started out with a tune that is familiar to anyone who has ever watched ‘’bassie en
adriaan’’ or ever listened to the radio. The boys, as can be regarded as being rather obvious, started
out with Tubular Bells part one. It was an amazing thing to look at, not only because they were skilled
enough to play tubular bells, live, with the two of them with the slightest number of mistakes. But it
actually sounded very nice too, it seemed to be a performance straight from the book.
In the beginning the running about and flying over the stage was sometimes a bit distracting from the
actual music they were playing, you’d just look at the way they were playing all the instruments like
they have been doing some kind of drugs.
Everyone in the crowd seemed to enjoy it, and everyone looked forward to another part of the
album. But the whole crowd shared one thing, they were simply astonished at how accurately they
played the album, and they were all enchanted in a way by the music that they played.
This can also be seen by the huuuge line waiting for their autograph. (yes I too did contribute to this
line, and got an autograph on my ticket), this showed just how much appreciation the audience had
for the boys’ performance.
Their appreciation is also shown by the fact that they are going everywhere on the world, they’ve
been on the staged here in the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, United kingdom, and
with over 35 performances, their shows are still largely sold out everywhere!
It was a truly amazing performance, and definitely worth visiting!