Last Night's Bond Concert in London
Gumbold
LondonPosts: 102MI6 Agent
Spent last night perched under an umbrella at a Music of James Bond concert in Crystal Palace by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which, in spite of the British 'summer', was splendid.
Here's the setlist for those interested…
The James Bond Theme
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Dawn Raid on Fort Knox
Thunderball
The Look of Love
You Only Live Twice (instrumental)
We Have All the Time in the World
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
Voyage to Atlantis/The Tanker
Nobody Does It Better
Interval
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
Tank Drive Around St Petersburg
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough
You Know My Name
The James Bond Theme
Encore 1
Surrender
Encore 2
The Man With The Golden Gun
Needless to say, the major disappointment was the omission of the OHMSS titles. And how on Earth can you perform two hours of Bond music and not include the OO7 theme?
Still, Dawn Raid on Fort Knox was superb and Surrender was a nice surprise. Oh, and although it was a little naughty, the female vocalist – who, along with the orchestra, conductor and audience, was getting increasing damp – sang the first line of Nobody Does It Better as Noboby Does It Wetter, which raised a laugh.
Here's the setlist for those interested…
The James Bond Theme
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Dawn Raid on Fort Knox
Thunderball
The Look of Love
You Only Live Twice (instrumental)
We Have All the Time in the World
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
Voyage to Atlantis/The Tanker
Nobody Does It Better
Interval
Moonraker
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
Licence to Kill
Tank Drive Around St Petersburg
Goldeneye
The World Is Not Enough
You Know My Name
The James Bond Theme
Encore 1
Surrender
Encore 2
The Man With The Golden Gun
Needless to say, the major disappointment was the omission of the OHMSS titles. And how on Earth can you perform two hours of Bond music and not include the OO7 theme?
Still, Dawn Raid on Fort Knox was superb and Surrender was a nice surprise. Oh, and although it was a little naughty, the female vocalist – who, along with the orchestra, conductor and audience, was getting increasing damp – sang the first line of Nobody Does It Better as Noboby Does It Wetter, which raised a laugh.
Comments
Oh I didn't hear that. the sound quality was pretty poor and because we'd decided to sit under the trees it was even worse- all echoey.
Odd choices of arrangements- seem to have come from those Prague albums of re-recordings that came out a few years back. Even weirder choices of cues from the soundtracks too: one rubbish one from Goldfinger, then nothing until two cues from Spy?! Is Carl a mate of Marvin's or something?
On the whole, decent versions, but just scuppered by the usual karaoke performers they wheel out for these things. You Know My Name was quite a good laugh, though. Damn them for leaving Golden Gun as the last tune in my head, too!
Would have been great if the sun had been shining; was a bit miserable as it was.
The reason the arrangements seem to come from "those Prague albums" is quite simple- Nic Raine was the arranger for both. The difference is that on the albums you mention Raine himself conducts the City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, while on a different album Carl Davis conducted the RPO (just the main themes, no cues). The performances on the latter album are far superior* although the omission of the MR theme was a disappointment, this being perhaps the worst-performed main theme from the Prague recordings. The Raine/Prague performances are understandably better on those tracks which he worked on under John Barry himself in the 80s.
I disagree that "Dawn Raid On Fort Knox" is rubbish; it's one of the best action cues in that film, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing it live. Carl Davis told me after the Glasgow show that this was one of the high points of the performance for him.
* although obviously John Barry's originals rule!
The set list is very similar to the concert I saw in Glasgow a couple of years back; you're totally correct that "OHMSS" would have been thrilling, and that omitting "007" was criminal! Have you heard the Roland Shaw recording of "007"? My all-time favourite, it's perhaps the only cover version to beat Barry at his own game.
No, I haven't… Sounds very interesting Barbel…
Well, obviously. Same arrangment; same arranger- I wasn't confused!
I dunno; it's my least favourite on the album; it's so repetitive.
Very weird selection of cues for this thing; only one of Barry's (lesser) tracks, then two Hamlisch and one Altman (and I'm sure he'd be delighted to be called Eric Serra!
Dawn Raid is repetitive in the same way Ravel's Bolero is, to pick a well-known example. It gradually increases in pitch and dynamics (ie, the music goes higher up the scale and becomes relatively louder) to raise the tension in the onscreen action it was designed to accompany. This is an established technique and the enjoyment is in listening to what the composer does within such a framework.
This is very much akin to the blues, incidentally. A musician playing the blues has to work within an established framework, and the enjoyment for the listener lies in hearing what Clapton or whoever does within those parameters. There is a high degree of repetition here, too, lyrically as well as musically and that's just the way it's supposed to be, I tell ya now, that's just the way it's supposed to be....:D
On the other hand, you are correct that it was a pretty strange selection!
I know that a lot of music uses repetation; I have heard music before! I just don't like it and its use in Dawn Raid; and I don't like the blues either if that's okay with you.
Naturally personal taste rules in whether one cares for a particular piece (or style) of music. I don't like rap, for example- clearly many do. You are quite correct to say you don't like Dawn Raid or any other piece of music; that doesn't make it "rubbish".
I would have rather had more instrumental music than the main themes as some of the vocal performances lacked, IMO.
The concert I saw didn't have the male singer, only Mary Carewe (?sp). She's a good singer, but Goldfinger etc are so identified with Shirley Bassey that anybody else is automatically going to be compared. To her credit, she didn't try to sound like the original singer.
I guess the male singer did Thunderball, Live And Let Die, etc?
Totally agree with that – the highlights for me were purely orchestral. The female vocalist (Mary Carewe) had a fairly decent stab at Shirley Bassey, but the male vocalist (Simon Bowman) was certainly no Tom Jones and his version of You Know My Name – followed by a OO7 gunbarrel spin – was nothing short of embarrassing.
Mind you, the concert was clearly aimed at the masses, which I guess is fair enough.
I saw the concert in Liverpool and the male singer (Jon Christos) was badly mis-cast. His voice being far too strong and disciplined to be able to handle the songs - even on songs like Thunderball where he sould have excelled, he just couldn't get the rhythm of the vocal.
I think you hit the nail with the biggest problem though, Barbel - some of the songs are just so identified with their singers that it was (almost) a thankless task. I think thats why I would have preferred more instrumentals.
I thought it was pretty clear that I was talking about my opinion: how can anyone state definitively that anything is 'rubbish'? It's all opinion when it comes to art. Obviously
Definitely agree that the orchestral stuff is nicest to hear, mostly because, well, I'm sure we've all heard the songs quite a few times!
Only Mary Carewe did both- the male singers were different. And the Nic Raine arrangements were used again.
Just booked my tickets
The info is here
And very good the orchestra were too !
This time around Carl Davies did the between-song narration (I last saw this concert in Liverpool where Honor Blackman did the narration) - he got quite a few details wrong, but I wouldn't overly blame him for that !
The singers this time were Hazel Fernandes and Simon Bowman.
Hazel was great, just lacking a little conviction on the opening words to each song though, but a strong enough voice when she 'went' for it !
Simon was very much a singer in the vein of Radio 2's Friday Night Is Music Night - a good singer but far too lightweight for most of the songs he sang.
On the whole an enjoyable evening and I look forward to more of these concerts in the future.