May 25: Totally Tubular

Sometime in the mid 1970s, my long-haired Uncle Steve played an album while I was at my nana's house in Rotherham. It was unlike anything I'd heard before and I was immediately fascinated by it. It turned out to be an album that was quite new, and was selling thousands of copies. 

The album came out on the 25th of May 1973.

This has been in my life for over 50 years, and I could probably imagine and 'play' the whole album perfectly to myself in my head I have heard it so many times, and the various sequels and variations which have emerged since.

I went to a special orchestral performance at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the 50th anniversary, with Brian Blessed.

It had been recorded by one person, who had spent weeks multi-tracking himself playing a whole range of instruments - particularly guitars - a young man called Michael Gordon Oldfield. It was the first issue on a new record label called Virgin records. Friends also liked it very much.

I bought a copy when I was in my record-buying phases and also had a copy on cassette tape. I consequently bought every release from Mike Oldfield in at least one format. He was still my most-listened-to artist according to my end of 2022 Spotify statistics.

The album cover is particularly distinctive with imagery from Trevor Key. It features some waves too of course. Are they constructive or destructive waves?

Here's the first tour that he did.

Here's the use of the track in the film 'The Exorcist'.

The album's name inspired a map of Wainwrights in the Lake District: Tubular Fells.

For me, Oldfield's masterpiece isn't Tubular Bells but his album 'Ommadawn', released two years later.

I was fortunate to see Oldfield play live four times. This included three times when he had the wonderful French drummer Pierre Moerlen in his band. 

In 1983, Oldfield played live at Glastonbury to a crowd of 45 000 people.

It was turned into a film, and shown at a cinema in Rotherham in 1984ish. The only way I could see it though was a second feature paired with a slightly soft-porny film... awkward...

And here's a Nottingham performance featuring a version of the band that I also saw, with the excellent Morris Pert on percussion instead of Pierre Moerlen.

I will share the story in another post of my visit to Horse Guards Parade to see the premiere of Tubular Bells III.

The last piece of music that Oldfield released before he retired (and never completed it) was the opening few minutes of 'Tubular Bells 4'.... 

Further reading.

A Conversation piece on how Tubular Bells changed music, and how it came about.