The Tubular Bells 50th Anniversary Tour (Double Disc)

This is one of my favourite pieces of music. I wasn't sure if the acrobatics would be right for it, but they are actually a beautiful enhancement. My only disappointment is that Mike Oldfield does not feature in the stage show.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE CONCERT,AS I'VE NOT WATCHED THE DOCUMENTARY YET,HAVING ONLY RECEIVED THE SET TODAY,ALONG WITH A MULTICHANNEL SACD OF LAYLA (SO THANK YOU AMAZON FOR GREAT MUSIC AND VISUALS) I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THE WHOLE EVENT,BOTH MUSIC AND CIRCUS VISUALIZATION OF THE MUSIC,AND CAN ONLY SURMISE THAT THE OTHER NEGATIVE REVIEWS ARE A CASE OF PERSONAL CHOICE.THE WHOLE ENSEMBLE WERE MAGNIFICENT,HOWEVER MY ATTENTIONS WERE PARTICULARLY DRAWN TO THE OUTSTANDING BASS PLAYER,WHOSE WORK ON TUBULAR BELLS APPROACHED ,NAY EXCEEDED PHENOMENAL...WITH REGARD TO THE BLU RAY ,I FOUND THE SOUND AND VISUALS TERRIFIC.ALL IN ALL A GREAT SET AT A VERY REASONABLE PRICE,AND A FABULOUS ADDITION TO MIKE OLDFIELDS ALREADY EXTENSIVE CATALOGUE

The composer delivered a great piece of music with the agreement of Mike Oldfield. The orchestration being delivered by first class musicians. Fabulous 👌.

OK – it’s a bit of a shock to realise that its 50 years since the original Tubular Bells was released. Those who have recently enjoyed the orchestral live version on tour may be looking at this and thinking that it’s worth a buy.In my opinion – it is with some serious reservations.First point – it is not a recording of the recent tour. This is from a concert filmed over three nights at the Royal Festival Hall, London in 2021.There are major differences between the two. This Bluray lasts 90 minutes – the recent tour was nearly 2 hours of Oldfield Music.Where the tour had a symphonic orchestra, here we have a band, albeit a band added to with dancers by the Circa Contemporary Circus.Of that 90 minutes here, the first 18 minutes or so are a new work called The Gem, written and performed by Musical Director Robin Smith. This is a new work specially written and performed for this concert. It’s all very nice, in a prog rock Pink Floyd kind-of way. BUT it is not Oldfield music, nor can I see it being played by him. As much as I thought that it was OK, I’m not sure it deserved a place here. I actually found it dull and underwhelming, even with some pretty computer graphics as a backdrop.Next up, a track from Oldfield’s Guitars album, Summit Day. This original simple guitar piece was much nicer, with the addition of some nicely atmospheric vocal sounds. This was not performed on the recent tour.Then Moonlight Shadow. Real karaoke stuff. Guitar work was good, vocally less so – and in my opinion done much better on the recent tour.30 minutes in, we get to the main meat of the concert - Tubular Bells, Parts 1 & 2. A new introduction, rather unnecessary, but it allows the dancers and the impressive graphics of the spinning sun to start being shown.The dancers and the graphics – not on the recent tour – are Ok but a little superfluous – lots of running jumping and rolling about, not to mention standing on shoulders. The acrobats on hoops above the stage were impressive, even when their connection to the music wasn’t always apparent. Overall, inoffensive, occasionally impressive but perhaps unnecessary.The sound of the music is generally good, in 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio (but no other options, note). It’s not a slavish copy of the original (although admittedly I am pleased with that) but there are times where it sounds nice. The “double speed guitar” at the end of Part 1 though was not nice. Samuel West as the narrator introducing the instruments was reasonable enough, although it seems to be a recording – no sign of him on stage. By comparison though the section with “the Caveman” in Part 2 was awful – the original intentionally humorous grunts turned into some kind of sub-par rap. (hey-ya, hey-ya, come on, come on etc.) It sadly reminded me of that reimagining of The Parson in the “New” Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds – the New Generation – not in a good way.Throughout the concert there is polite clapping from the audiences in places just to remind you that this is a live concert, and cheers (of course!) for “Tubular Bells!”We finish with the traditional Sailor’s Hornpipe, albeit at the same time as the end-credits.All in all, this is pleasant enough, though not perfect.On the downside, the packaging of the Bluray is… minimal. You get two discs, Disc 1 being the 90-minute concert, the second being a Documentary of 110 minutes – longer than the concert! - on the making of the concert. Other than that, there is very little to inform us about the concert – no track list on the box (although there are titles throughout the video), no photos, no booklet with information about the dates of the tour, or even how the tour went, no articles – I wasn’t expecting something by Oldfield or Richard Branson, to be honest, but one by someone explaining the context and purpose of the concert without looking at the documentary would have been nice. There’s not even a list of the musicians involved, except in the end credits. You are pretty much left to guess. It almost makes you feel like there’s some embarrassment about telling casual buyers what the contents are about.The key point is.. is it worth a buy? As a lifelong Oldfield fan, I found that this is worth a listen for certain tracks. The surround sound was often good, the quality of the picture also. The dancing seemed rather pointless. Would I watch it more than once? Possibly not.As I know some may be looking at this to buy as a reminder of the most recent tour, in my opinion, this is not as good - the recent tour was MUCH better. If that ever became available, I would suggest that that was a better buy – more orchestra, with a bigger sound to the music (and Brian Blessed, admittedly) and more actual Oldfield music – Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, both brilliant. For now, some of this will do, although it may be a point of contention that “it will do” is good enough for a 50th anniversary celebration.

Looking at the other low-rated reviews, I'm obviously the exception. I found Tubular Bells with both the music and the dancing / acrobatics totally overwhelming - beautiful on both counts, and very emotional also. Saw it live-streamed at the cinema (twice) and now watching it at home with surround sound - cannot stop listening to / watching it. Just love it, as a big prog rock fan it's one of the best things I've witnessed.An extraordinary performance, quite exceptional, thoroughly recommend it.

Having seen the spectacular live performance by the RPO and extremely accomplished musicians at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, I ordered this pre-release Blu-ray video version with great expectations. I honestly expected something akin to what we had witnessed. What a gullible wally I was!!Extremely embarrassed to have gifted this to my beloved for Christmas. Gutted!!!The failure of the disc to properly complete it's promised duty actually came as no surprise, and in fact saved us from further distress. Many continued hang ups suggested that very poor quality production was the order of the day. Makes it even easier to chuck it in the bin.The vision of the very accomplished circus acrobats seriously detracts from the whole meaning of the music. Very good and very clever but not in the context of this classic piece of music.For those not seriously into 'Tubular Bells' this will be a fabulous experience. Please forgive us who have followed and loved TB for many years - The Blu-ray video is NOT for us.

nice to hear tubular bells again. the band are tight and the acrobats are amazing performing to the music.the 2nd dvd is of mike oldfield and richard branson talking about the album etc well worth the money

Very good production, very good performance. Sadly the absence of Mike Oldfield from the live performance was a massive let down for me. Indeed had this point been made readily apparent, I would not have purchased the item.