Multi-instrumentalist and composer Daniel Holdsworth joins forces once again with long-time friend and collaborator, Aiden Roberts, for an incredible two-man rendition of Mike Oldfield’s 1973 album, 'Tubular Bells'.
The talented duo premiered ‘Tubular Bells For Two’ at the Sydney Fringe Festival in 2010, and return to Brisbane after a triumphant 2015 UK tour (including Edinburgh Fringe) and recent season at the Perth Fringe Festival.
Daniel says the project came about after Aiden and he were drinking wine and listening to records. “'Tubular Bells' was just one of the albums we put on the record [player] that night. I remember Aiden saying ‘do you remember this?’ And I hadn't heard it for years. And then we just had a few instruments lying around and started tinkering along with it, and the idea kind of came out of that.”
The pair had drifted apart over the years and wanted to start playing together again. “We set ourselves a challenge and said: ‘Well we enjoyed listening to that record, why don’t we try and learn it on two guitars? Two guitars, and we’ll play it at our local cafe.’
“We just thought it would be a one-off show,” Daniel says, “and then it took off and we got invited to Sydney [Fringe] Festival, and then we took it to Edinburgh [Fringe], and now we’ve been touring it pretty much non-stop for six years.
“When we first started playing this song we had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t realise people would take things away from it, because we were so focused on getting it right.”
Despite playing together for almost a decade, Daniel says the show involves a “high level of risk”. “On one hand, we’ve got to play a beautiful piece of music and we’ve got to give it justice, but on the other hand, the task that we’ve set ourselves is so immense. A few years back when we were playing Sydney [Fringe] Festival, I lost power to my whole side of the stage about two-thirds into the show just before the big climax, and I just lost it. I was pushing all the buttons, I couldn’t figure out what was going on, all the power had gone off.
“I tried unplugging things, plugging things back in and Aiden was on the other side just kind of going along with things for a while. And in the end I just ran around to his side of the stage and we shared a piano together and he had a guitar that we were both kind of sharing, and we just got there, you know, we just got to the end.
“And even though musically all the tones weren’t the same as what was on the record, I think for the audience that night it was one of the best performances. They just loved it. We got there and we still played them the album, and we didn't stop… So stuff goes wrong, but you just gotta deal with it.”
Daniel says he and Aiden are working on something new, but it isn't another album reinterpretation. “I think if we tried to do a different album it would be a bad sequel.
“[The new project] is taking a while to get going, but we’re hoping by next year to have it up and running. It’s called ‘Red Earth’… and it is a musical-based performance about a girl who loses her father 300 years in the future in the middle of the desert in Australia.”
'Tubular Bells For Two' plays the Brisbane Powerhouse 12-13 May.
