INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES
The Argus MAY 4, 2010 - by Ian Ray
APOLLO: THIS IS FOR ALL MANKIND
Brighton Dome Concert Hall, May 1
Until the day a shrivelled, elderly Richard Branson unveils his Virgin Lunar service, this may be the closest we'll come to touching down on the dusty surface of the moon.
Conceived to soundtrack filmmaker Al Reinert's moon mission documentary, Brian Eno's electronic record Apollo was brought to life with washes of acoustic sound by the fifteen-strong Icebreaker ensemble.
Clarinets, accordians, violins and BJ Cole's wonderfully evocative pedal steel recreated the album's every brooding rumble and blissed-out reach for the stars as Reinert's accompanying film showed us the playful abandon and sheer wonder of walking on the moon.
For anyone who knows the record, Jun Lee's arrangement was familiar live yet starkly different at the same time. Eno himself gave credit to the Korean arranger in a short talk before the show, but few could have expected the festival's guest curator to get behind the mic himself after Apollo had concluded.
In a rare and unbilled performance, the entire ensemble backed up Eno's (initially slightly shaky) singing, as he ran through tracks from his 1977 album Before And After Science and the more recent Another Day On Earth.
Sumptuous and epic, with Eno's surprise appearance thrown in, this was a real event, exactly what a festival should be all about. The terrace-style chants of "Enooo" as the curtain fell may well follow the guest curator around until May 23.
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