Liverpool Philharmonic, October 6th 2018

So…my VERY first time seeing OMD play with an orchestra. I had SO wanted to go to the one in 2009 but my job was such that I wasn’t able to take as many trips and I had tickets booked already to go see them later in the year when they opened for Simple Minds. Then there was talk about it happening again..and more talk…and I laughed back in 2015 as I sat in Leipzig seeing another favorite band (Covenant) play with an orchestra because I thought “Can’t believe I’m seeing Covenant play with an orchestra before OMD!” But…FINALLY!!! And well worth the wait I may add! 😀 But I’ll get to that in a bit. 😉

So my trip actually started from Colchester as I had flown in the night before and stayed with a dear friend overnight. Hopped a local train to London and then another train from London to Liverpool, all uneventful. Claudia and I were staying together and she arrived about 30 mins prior to me so met me at the platform and we headed to our hotel. As we all knew, this weekend also had a special event of the Giants Parade. The plan I had for Saturday really didn’t involve watching it much as I wasn’t sure how the trains would work, if delayed, crowds etc but as soon as we got out of the station, we saw the first bit of it…a huge bus with a knife in it! 😮 Quite funny to see really!

Well, slow going as the city was PACKED with people, OMG! But we made it and once we dropped off bags, we headed off to do a bit of shopping…and saw the Giant sleeping (snoring quite loudly as it was LOL 😀 ) And later, once in our hotel (that was actually an apartment so lots of nice facilities), we had our window open and all of a sudden, loud music and talking came. I was like “wow, it’s suddenly gotten loud out there, what the heck?” Looked out and saw people coming around the corner with their cameras pointed out. I told Claudia I thought something was going on but I couldn’t see out far enough so looked out the next window and there was the Giant at the end of the block! He was awake this time, moving his head and arms so…yay, got to see a bit of it today after all LOL! 😀

Claudia didn’t have a ticket for Saturday, only Sunday, so I headed off to meet Steve and Sally who had my tickets (I hadn’t known about the option to join the Liverpool Philharmonic, er, group…subscribe…not sure what it is called but you paid 50P and then could get tickets early so was surprised when I had messages from him and Paula saying they got me tickets because I was prepared to get up at 3am Thursday for the sale! Steve’s were front row both nights so took those LOL) When I arrived, I found Dave, Rebecca and Jean Pierre, and another guy I didn’t know LOL. We chatted a bit but a lot of others were across the street at the Philharmonic Bar so eventually Dave and then I went over there. Lots of fans to see! I love getting to say hello to so many people! 🙂 Hopefully I won’t forget anyone…there was Wendy, Paula, Steph, Helen, Neal, Bren, and John. I was on the look out for Jenny and Tim as I had something to give them but didn’t see them.

Shortly after, we ended up heading to the venue as most of us had VIP tickets and that included getting into a “Music Room” that had it’s own bar and sitting area with a video screen and a DJ playing music. In line, Sean came up so we chatted and once inside, I found Pammy who, like me, had crossed the pond for the event LOL. I was chatting with Paula and then Pammy when a man came up to me and showed me a picture he had of me and the singer from Vile Electrodes (they had opened for OMD in Germany back in 2013). Embarrassingly enough, I initially thought he was someone else but once we started talking, I realized no, he was their manager. It was him and his wife who had been running the show and shortly after, she came too so had a lovely chat. I swear, it truly IS a small world in OMD land! 😀

But time went fast and before we knew it, it was time to leave and go back around the venue to get to our seats. I must say, the venue was a lot smaller than I had expected! 😮 I was thinking more along the lines of Birmingham Symphony Hall but this place was much smaller. Probably only about 20 rows on the floor, small “boxes” up a small bit along the entire floor (the venue was like a half circle) and then a balcony that didn’t look much more deep than the floor. Being in the front row, I thought “my goodness, we are practically on stage! 😮 ” Our seats were on stage right (so Mr. M.s side) and in front of us was the large violin section. A video screen was behind the orchestra and they used it for various images depending on the song. Sadly, prior to the show starting, they made an announcement that NO video or photography would be allowed! UGH! 🙁 I REALLY wanted a bit of video since it was such a spectacular thing to see but being right in the front and having a guard off to the left, I didn’t dare. 🙁 (tho I DID manage to nab 3 pics, one when the guard had left for something, one during intermission when orch had returned but not yet the band, and one near the end that I just decided to snap quicly as I wanted to get a pic of Mr. M.s sweater. 😉 )

The orchestra members came out first (75…or 76, I can’t remember now what Mr. M. said), then the conductor, and then Mr. M. and Mr. H. Mr. H. had on a light blue suit and Mr. M. a black one. Many people, including myself, took this opportunity to dress up more formally since it seemed proper (I laughed because the dress I brought to wear Sunday still had the price tags on! Never had an event to wear it since buying LOL 😀 ) I should mention that tho I have the DVD of the 2009 show, i had not watched it. I kept waiting in hopes that they would do this again because I wanted my FIRST experience to be a LIVE one! SO glad I waited because what a WOW moment! 😮 😀 😀 😀 They started off with Stanlow and it just was beautiful! Seemed the song was made for the orchestra and I got goosebumps! Part of the VIP package was a signed program and the set list was in it but tho Sean was getting excited prior to start, I told him don’t tell me because I didn’t want to know! So as each song started, it was a pleasant surprise. Statues was next and I found myself looking more at the orchestra to try and see who was playing what than Mr. M. and Mr. H. LOL. (but hey, I can see them any time, it’s not every day I have a massive orchestra playing their music to watch! 😉 ) When it was over and Mr. M. had thanked the crowd, he then told us that “the second half will have more of our hits. Tho I suspect SOME of you will prefer the first half.” Non-hits are working just fine so far! 😀

Pammy had hoped they would do Ghost Star and as it turned out, that was song #3! I looked over to her (she was front row also but on other side) and could see she was immersed in it and I started to cry. It was just so beautiful! One thing I remembered from the Covenant orchestra show once the show started and I could hear how clear Mr. M.s vocals were coming thru was that it shows how well a singer is. There’s no hiding behind loud bass or drums, no vocal correction machines (not saying they use it but I’m just saying…) it’s very raw. I remember talking to a guy sitting next to me during intermission at Covenant and he said that he had seen a few other bands do this sort of thing and “it shows who can sing and who can’t.” I won’t mention the band he said could NOT but we both agreed Eskil COULD. And it was the same with Mr. M. EVERY emotion, every intonation, every everything was very clear and sounding great! 🙂

During the song, I also thought of Mark who wasn’t at the shows. He loves that song too so I got the idea of grabbing my phone and just hitting record but letting it lay on top of my phone so that I could just get some audio. SO glad I did because to my ABSOLUTELY ELATED surprise, they launched into New Dark Age! 😮 OOMMGGGG!!!! 😀 😀 😀 NEVER imagined that (tho I DID wonder if they would do a lot of non-hits but wow! ) More tears just because it was wonderful to not only hear them do this song but in this way and form. And funny enough, when it was over, Mr. M. laughed and said “I just thought if you have a 75 piece orchestra you may as well throw in an obscure B-Side from the 1990s.” He then continued by saying “This one isn’t a premier…” and they began Sealand. I’m going to sound like a broken record as I keep saying how amazing it was but…it truly was! Such a long part for the orchestra to play as Mr. M. just kind of swayed, eyes closed and Mr. H. also eyes closed and leaning back as he pressed down on the keys for his part. When it was finally time for Mr. M. to sing, he hit the ending high note just right. 🙂 I was lucky to see who was playing the “wack wack wack wack” of the metal like drum at the end to make the sound like the song (if you know what I mean) and pointed it out to Sean and we both watched this girl…just like the song truly!. I kept recording so got both those songs. 🙂 The Avenue was next and strangely enough, I noticed that Mr. M. whistles without pursing his lips….almost like it’s coming from the back of his throat or something. 😮 Huh… 🙂

Well then Mr. M. mentioned that they had been asked to write a song for a movie that was just out “hopefully some of you went to see it today.” He introduced it to us as “This is The Daughter of the Minotaur” then looked at Mr. H. and said “can I come over there and do the bass part?” I thought “oh…wait huh?”. Mr. H. laughed and said “yes come on” and next thing we knew, Mr. M. was standing on Mr. H.’s left hand side and they both had a hand on the keys. No vocals at all, it was all instrumental (thus a great idea to do with the orchestra) and when it was over and Mr. M. was coming back over to his regular spot, the laughed and said “Paul, was the last time I was over there playing with you back when we used to do XCL X1 live?” Mr. H. laughed and said “yeah, I think it WAS!”. It was a very cute sight! 🙂 Well, one more touching and lovely song of “The View From Here” and then it was a wave goodbye as that was the end of the first half. Went by SO quickly! 🙁

Break time meant chat and potty time so said a quick hello to a few people, ran into Jane in line (so glad she introduced herself as I wouldn’t have recognized her from the picture I remember seeing of her last year getting the Traveling Messages book signed by the guys) and we were JUST about to get to do our business when the announcement was made that the show would start in 5 minutes. Good lord! The toilets only had 3 for a place like this so…rush rush rush, didn’t even dry my hands and practically ran back to my seat to find that we didn’t start for another 5 or 8 minutes. (hence me grabbing the second picture LOL). Ah well… 😀 Well, when the conductor came out, the orchestra stood, then Mr. M. and Mr. H. came out and you could see that Mr. M. had changed his shirt to a funky patterned sweater! He joked and said “1980s Junk Culture!” Mr. H. laughed and said “I’m surprised you can still fit in it.” Mr. M. looked at him and laughed and said “you are?” Mr. H. laughed and said “well, I’m just saying…” and Mr. M. laughed and said “actually, yeah, I CAN. Thank you Paul.” (Hey, I think it’s a good thing he can fit into something umpteen years later! 😀 ) And as promised, we started off with a hit…Messages. Yup, a bit more familiar territory (though I have to say, I truly DID love the first half! I think if given the opportunity to hear one or the other ONLY the next night, I would have picked first half despite the fact that 1 of the 2 songs I liked the best was in the second half LOL).

We then saw Merve come on out with Mr. M.s bass and I thought “hmmmm….” Mr. M. took it and said “yes, I have the bass now. Tho there are 4 much BETTER bass players here behind me” gesturing to the orchestra. It was Souvenir. I jokingly leaned over to Jean Pierre and said “are we going to head bang?” and did a little bit. He laughed and said “I don’t know” then looked at Steve and Sally and did a little too so I joined. They laughed and it took a few seconds but then they decided yeah, why NOT? (mind you, forgot to mention that we saw Stuart and his wife and Mr. C. and I THINK his wife to our left in the first box earlier in the night). At first I was like “omg, I CAN’T!” because it DID feel a bit strange to be doing it at a formal show. But next thing I knew, my head was going back and forth, Sean joined in too and off we all went. At one point, Jean Pierre looked up towards Stuart and started laughing so I looked over and saw Stuart and JoAnn head banging off the balcony. HA! 😀 I also think Mr. M. may have seen it as he was coming over on his bass and looked up, then bopped his head slightly but not sure if he knew we were actually head banging as they may have calmed it down by then LOL.

Well, more teary eyes as they launched into Joan of Arc and the crowd let out an extra cheer too. Up to this point, everyone seemed to be truly loving it and lots of cheers after each song but extra at the start of Messages and JoA. And clapping to the beat began too. I think the orchestra was enjoying watching and hearing our reactions. And…tho I wondered if they would follow it up with MoA, I found that yes, they did. Mr. M. did a mild version of windmilling (as expected because again, it’s an orchestra show 😉 ) and when it was over, I just decided to stand as I had seen a guy earlier way in the back standing and dancing to Messages. I said to Sean “we should stand” so bless his heart, he got up with me and then others got up and next thing ya know, we were all up clapping and cheering. Mr. M. thanked us all, then said “lovely, you’re all up…not sit back down.” I laughed and said to Sean “he could have at least said ‘Please’ ” 😀 😀 Made sense tho because the next song was All That Glitters. (a song that I got stuck in my head after Sunday’s show and is going on as I type this. Not sure why but… )

Right, so anyone who read my blogs from the tour of last year and this year knows how much What Have We Done makes me cry. I was literally praying they wouldn’t do it because tho it has been months since the tour and it would seem I’d be better, since the last American dates, I have had more personal loss so the song hits me even harder. 🙁 Well Mr. M. and Mr. H. switched spots and I had HOPED since Mr. M. said this would be the section with more hits that they would do FLaD but nope. I heard Mr. H. say it was a song from TPoL and I literally cringed, said “OMG!” covered my face and scrunched down in my seat with my face down. Sean was like “I’m so sorry, I should have warned you this was coming because I know what it was like last tour. I’m sorry!” I told him don’t worry but it was so hard to hear that I couldn’t even look anywhere. I literally kept my eyes closed the whole time, body shaking and tears streaming down my face. UGH, REALLY?!?!? Can’t even get away from it at an ORCHESTRA gig? :'( :'( Not at all a good moment for me to say the least and it actually took me part of the next song to recover which was a shame because it was Le Femme Accident and that sounded perfect! Well…such it was. 🙁

Mr. M. asked how many people had been to the show back in 2009 and I saw a number of hands go up. He said “oh, quite a few, OK. Well do you remember which song I messed up the words on? THIS one”. Mr. H. said something about the lyrics being there and Mr. M. said “no, I have this (motioning to a podium thingy that seemed to actually HAVE lyrics to some songs) but THIS song I said not to include the lyrics for.” Well, part way thru, he did in fact mess up words again (tho not too obviously) and poor guy made the gesture of a gun shooting himself. Aww, it’s OK. I have always said things like that make a band HUMAN and it’s not unattractive at all. I remember once when James of Glasvegas came in on the wrong verse and stopped the song shortly after to apologize, I had been recording it so told him later I wouldn’t post it. He said “no no, go ahead. It shows we are playing LIVE for any doubters or whoever who say we don’t PLAY.” SO…yup, even MORE true for an electronic band like OMD who fell into the “you just play synths, you’re not a REAL live band.” It HAPPENS, it’s special in my eyes so… 🙂 Anyways, as it was going, I was trying to find the trombone people for the part between verses but they must have been back a ways. The one unfortunate thing about being front row (and mind you, I’m not complaining, just making a statement) is that we were sitting BELOW the stage so it was hard to see ALL of the orchestra and what was going on when. Anyways, when it was done, we still all cheered as Mr. M. just shook his head. Next was Dream of Me and as the violins did their thing, Sean was like “ahhh, that’s NICE!” Yup 🙂

We ended up standing again as WotMW took off and I saw Mark (different Mark than CA one, this was MN one 😉 ) and Steve (another Steve, yes it gets confusing LOL) doing the moon walk stomp like the video up above us from the music video LOL. And then the other SUPER special song for me to hear came…The Native Daughters of the Golden West! 😮 WHOO HOO! 😀 😀 (tho I later found out they had done it in 2009 but again, new to ME! 😉 ) It was SO COOL! 🙂 And I could see the drummer doing the bit in the middle. Awesome! 🙂 More standing for SotSS of course and THEN, it was…dare I say it for an orchestra show???….BOUNCING! 😮 Yup, didn’t think I’d be bouncing at this show (and actually said earlier I was GLAD I wouldn’t be as I had hurt my right foot and it was killing me so I laughed saying I was glad this wasn’t a “normal show” or I’d be in trouble.” ) Well, I just put pain aside and started to bop but didn’t let my feet TRULY leave the ground until Mr. M.s feet did. THEN I knew it was OK and up and down I went! The one violinist looked over and smiled a massive smile as Jean Pierre was also bouncing and so was Sean. (that guy was having a blast the whole night. Lots of smiles and look outs from him. I think he was enjoying watching us whole lot…not just in the front all over the place but everyone…getting so into it! 😀 ) The conductor seemed to enjoy things too as occasionally he looked back and more times would look around and smile when the songs were over and everyone was clapping and cheering enthusiastically.

Once done and everyone was cheering, Mr. M. and Mr. H. stood there all smiles, soaking it in also. The conductor was smiling, many members of the orchestra (including our smiley guy) were looking out half in pleasure and pride and half in wonder and then Mr. M. started to give shout outs. First to the 2 guys who “took our little songs and turned them into these amazing works.” Then to the conductor Richard Balcombe and each of the guys went over to shake his hand. And then of COURSE a HUGE shout out to the orchestra! As they got announced, they all stood and faced us and we all let it out! Just AMAZING!!! 😀 The guys walked off as did the conductor but the rest of the orchestra sat back down and I thought ‘well they can’t leave wihtout doing Electricity!” so I said that to Sean and he was like “yeah, there’s a bit more, don’t worry.” It was literally only a minute or 2 when everyone came back out and Mr. M. said “it’s 40 years from our first show but we wrote this NEXT song 2 years before THAT.” He then turned to Mr. H. and said “Paul, did you ever think back then we would be performing it with an orchestra?” And Mr. H. said “no, no NEVER!” Well…you are LOL! I wanted to bounce but no one else was, including Mr. M. so I just bopped up and down but kept my feet on the ground LOL. Then when it was over and I THOUGHT it was done, we got 1 more (which I immediately figured out what it was because it too made sense to be performed). Again, another debut for me as I hadn’t seen the original A&M shows back when the guys first formed and I missed RAH show…TRotT. Take a wild guess how it went down… 😉

That ended up truly being the end so another round of thank yous, the orchestra stood one more time and the guys seemed to be really truly pleased with it all (as were all of us of course!) . Once everyone had left the stage including the orchestra this time, I made my way over to try and say hello to the girls but they were gone so met up with Pammy who had wanted to try and see the special art works that were supposed to be for sale. I finally ran into Jenny and Tim which was lovely so we had a chat and then Pammy came by and I saw Steve and Sally but then we got lost again LOL. But yet ANOTHER Mark said hello so he and his wife chatted with Pammy and I and more pics. 🙂 At this point, when they left, I didn’t see any familiar faces so suggested Pammy and I head over to the bar that everyone had been at prior but no one was there so we just decided to head back to our hotels. I was limping like a gimp at this point as my foot hurt terribly so bless her heart, she insisted I hop in her cab and off we went. Made plans to try to meet up the next morning to see some of the Giants parade and then I got off at my apartment and we said goodbye. What a night!!!! 😀 😀