OMD and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra generate a powerful display (From Wirral Globe)

OMD and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra generate a powerful display

4:44pm Monday 22nd June 2009

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"WE'VE come a long way from playing on an old tin box in your bedroom in Meols," said OMD's Andy McCluskey to his bemused musical partner Paul Humphries, as the pair surveyed from the stage the lavish Art Deco surroundings of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's concert hall in Hope Street.

After just one full rehearsal, the long-awaited OMD/RLPO show was about to embark on what can best be described as a voyage of discovery.

'It was an incredible experience and we really hope to get another opportunity to do it again one day'

OMD's Andy McCluskey

This was a game of two halves. The first was The Energy Suite, a collaboration with Liverpool film-maker Hambi Haralambous and Peter Saville, depicting the elemental forms of power generation set to music written by Andy with former OMD keyboard player Stewart Kershaw.

Peter Saville has a long history with OMD. The renowned artist first met the band back in 1979 when he was a director of Factory Records, the company which first signed the electronic pop pioneers.

Hambi has worked in the music industry for more than 20 years as a recording artist and entrepreneur, designing and building the Pink Museum recording studio in Liverpool.

This was where his working relationship with Andy began in 1989 with OMD's Sugar Tax album.

The Energy Suite worked remarkably well with the Phil in full flight.

Hambi's thought-provoking moving images have caught perfectly the sometimes bleak and always powerful process of creating energy - Gas, Water, Air, Nuclear and Coal.

This work premiered at the FACT centre in December, and the transfer from synthesised orchestration to the real thing was a revelation for Andy.

He said: "Had I have known that the music was one day going to be played by a full orchestra, I might have been a bit more adventurous with it. The videos looked really, really good but I wish I'd taken a chance and done something more with the music.

"I felt it was a little one-paced. But I've never scored for an orchestra in my life and, to be honest, really never thought I'd get the chance."

However, the suite commanded attention throughout and was well received.

After a brief interval, the audience retook their seats and the nervous tension was electric. Paul and Andy took their places at the front of the RLPO and the question they had been asking themselves - "Is this really going work?" - was about to be answered.

Andy, born and bred and still living in Wirral, theatrically crossed his fingers, looked to be saying a little prayer to the Music Gods, took a deep breath...and they were off with a strange and esoteric version of Radio Prague.

And straight away you realised, this wasn't going to be just OMD tunes with a few violins thrown in, it was going to be a completely different experience.

A bit of a subdued reaction from the crowd to the first number, perhaps we were not sure if it was all right to shout out loud in such a grand room.

Then it was into Messages and, as seems to be the case at OMD gigs these days, the audience just went nuts.

Three tunes in, Joan of Arc, and the joint was jumping.

Up in the Grand Circle and down to the stalls, the crowd were on their feet dancing away and singing along.

The nerves had completely disappeared and band and audience were free to make the most of this unique event.

Andy said: "I thought some songs worked really well and some didn't work quite so well. But that was to be expected as we had never done anything like this before.

"Singing with the orchestra was a totally different experience from being with the band. Our decibel levels usually vary from Loud to Bl**dy Loud, but with the Phil, the dynamics are vast; from almost silence to deafening.

"It was an incredible experience and we really hope to get another opportunity to do it again one day.

"The orchestra were really lovely with us, which was very good of them as they've studied hard music all their lives while Paul and I wouldn't know one end of a crotchet from the other!"

A DVD of the night is being edited now and details of how fans can get their hands on a copy will be released shortly.

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