THE haunting and evocative sounds of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells will soon fill the Horsham Town Hall.
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Multi-instrumentalists Tom Bamford and Daniel Holdsworth have given themselves the challenge to perform Oldfield’s cult album in its entirety using more than 20 instruments.
They have toured the experimental performance, dubbed Tubular Bells for Two, around the world, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Now they are bringing the show to Horsham with special performance at the Horsham Town Hall on June 21.
Mr Holdsworth said the idea for the show came about a decade ago.
“We were listening to this great record and we were fascinated with it,” he said.
“It was this massive international hit when it came out in 1973.
“Considering it’s 50 minutes long with no single, it was really strange that it was so popular.
“At the end of the song, there’s the voice of an MC who goes through all the instruments used and we thought that it would be so cool to set up all the instruments around us and play them.”
Tubular Bells was released in 1973 and was the first record distributed on Richard Branson’s Virgin Records label.
A section of Tubular Bells was famously used as the theme song for the cult classic horror film, The Exorcist.
Mr Holdsworth said the music’s impact had been everlasting.
“Technology was rapidly changing when this album came out, and so was music,” he said.
“It really became a cult classic; music is so manufactured nowadays and this music takes you on a journey through different genres – from heavy rock, to folk to jazz.
“That famous eerie section from The Exorcist is incredible and haunting, but the song is so much more than that.”
He said shows attracted a mix audience.
“It’s music that really jumps across generations, and this is a really unique performance,” he said.
“Things can get a bit crazy on stage as we’re forced to create techniques to play everything at once.”
Tubular Bells for Two will be performed at the Horsham Town Hall on Thursday June 21 from 8pm.
More information can be found here.