OLDFIELD CONCERT çddf,faa,afa,aaf,faf,ffa,aff ¼ Mike Oldfield concert April 1, 1993 in The Hague, Holland. ² =================================== ¹ After completing his fabulous sequel to Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells II, Mike Oldfield made a tour across Europe. Luckily for me, he also visited Holland, where he gave one concert. Tickets had been on sale for some time, but still were not sold out, so I bought one too. But when I got to the concert hall it was already very crowded. Entering the hall, I imediate saw something unusual: there were no standing places, everybody had a seat. Just before the concert the crowd was asked to sit down, and to stay there, because otherwise everybody would stand up, and that would result in a lot of people who were unable to see the show. The people referred to were some people in wheelchairs, who sat all around the place. And I must say that during the concert everybody sat on his seat, which was a good thing. The concert began with the supportact, Loreena McKennit, who was according to a leaflet I was given at the entrance multi- instrumental. Well, that may be right, but all I saw her doing was playing a harp and singing. Half an hour long, and between the songs she kept on telling that she was very much influenced by old Celtic songs and stuf. Well, I think that you need some more to call your songs rather Celtic then a harp and some Celtic chords, but who am I to say so? She ¶did have a good and loud voice, but in my opinion she wasn't a good supportact for Mike Oldfield. Why? Well, the musicstyles were actualy totaly different. Some sweet and a little bit Celtic harp music as a supportact, and some rough Celtic synthesizer rock as a headliner, that doesn't fit together so well. But anyway, after half an hour it was Oldfields time to strike back, and he did it hard! Silently the piano began to play the short intro of Tubular Bells II, and one after another the other instruments came in. Then Oldfield came in playing his guitar, or better said, one of his guitars, he had a whole line of guitars standing near him, about sixteen I think, plus a banjo. The whole band fitted very well together, and they played very much like on the CD, just with some improvisations, which made the music even more attractive. Some musicians, like the drummer had very much to do. I have a great admiration for that man, he was really very busy, playing all types of percussion instruments one can imagine, and sometimes it seemed he did them all at once, running from his drumkit to the glockenspiel, playing some notes, and immediately after that he had a pair of cymbals in his hands. Also there were some synthesizers on stage, which would make every musician in the scene jalous. Very funy was when some man with a tiger-wig (yes, you read it right) came on stage, yelling around in a low voice, and playing the fool. ¶Few people noticed that this was the pianist. How I noticed? Well, I saw a video some days before the concert, and there it was the pianist dressed normaly who did that 'vocal' part. But the very best part of the concert came when some sackpipe players entered, and played their part. A Dutch news paper said it was a nice extra on the show, but that journalist probably didn't know what he was writing about, as the sackpipes were a real part of the show, and could not have been left out. After two hours the piece of music ended, but the crowd was so enthusiast, that Oldfield came back to play two encores; one on the mandolin, and one on the guitar, both very good. After the concert I could go home very content, just as many other fans. ¼ Death Angel / ZITE prod.