This was the year when Big Big Train released their album 'English Electric' Part One.
This has a real pastoral feel to it.
This is one of the most 'English' tracks.
It ends with a recitation of some of the wildlife to be found in hedgerows...
Rose hips, haw berriesHedgerow, dry stone
Dog rose, honeysuckle
Blackbirds, red wing
Song thrush, yellowhammer
Lacewings, ladybirds
Fox earths, rabbit warrens
Badger's sets, partridge nests
Public Service Broadcasting released their EP 'The War Room'.
Some classic tracks are on this EP and 'Spitfire' remains a popular part of their live shows with the roar of the Merlin engines at the start.
2012 was the year that London hosted the Olympics.
I was down in Devon at the time and was actually watching Leeds play Torquay in a friendly match when the opening ceremony started.
We headed back to Dartmoor where we were staying and put the radio, and remarkably it said 'Mike Oldfield'... and on came a version of this Tubular Bells theme...
He hadn't performed live for years...
When Mike Oldfield stepped out onstage at the Olympic Park in Stratford, London, on Friday 27th July 2012, it marked his first major live concert performance in his home country in over a decade. However, this was no ordinary show. Oldfield’s music had been personally selected by Danny Boyle to play a central part in Isles Of Wonder, his specially-created work for the Opening Ceremony of the 30th Olympic Games.
In front of an estimated global viewing audience of a billion (not to mention the 80,000 in the stadium), Oldfield opened with the immediately familiar theme from his legendary Tubular Bells before he and his band lifted off into the incredible ‘Tubular Bells Swing’ section, which, as many will recall, accompanied the staff and patients of Great Ormond Street Hospital doing some remarkable choreography. Add into that newly-composed material to signal the arrival of the flying Mary Poppins, a spirited rendition of his 1975 UK Top Five single ‘In Dulce Jubilo’ and the beautifully wistful closing coda, and you have eleven-and-a-half minutes of premium Mike Oldfield. It was a extraordinary night to kick-start an extraordinary Olympics, and this is extraordinary music.
