We’ve been fortunate enough to attend a fair few events at The Royal Albert Hall over the past 12 months including Back to the Future and Star Trek both with live orchestras. It’s been five years since the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra last performed their ‘Music of Bond’ show at the Royal Albert Hall and we lucky enough to be there to witness it!
The event featured a 90 piece orchestra playing famous scores from almost all the previous 23 James Bond incarnations taking us on a journey of audible awesomeness! Conducted by Gareth Hudson and presented by former Bond girl, Fiona Fullerton, we were in for a real treat.
Alison Jiear (Les Misérables) and Simon Bowman were the vocalists tasked with singing the lyrics made famous by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Duran Duran, Shirley Bassey, A-Ha and John Barry. A tough job since the packed audience knew the music so well.
As the first song (predictably the John Barry James Bond theme) was played and the Albert Hall was in awe as they played it perfectly. I’m not sure ive ever experienced goosebumps like that during the event as each of the famous theme songs were played one after the next. That tingling feeling down my spine was ever presented as I closed my eyes imagining Bond in the dozens of action sequences we’ve seen over the past 50 years while the themes continued to play.
The event most certainly did not disappoint as one after the next, the themes kept on coming until we’d gone through the entire back catalogue of James Bond movies. We were treated to one final song during the encore as the orchestra and Simon Bowman performed the brand new song from Spectre by Sam Smith called ‘Writing’s on the Wall’. Although the song has had mixed reviews in the media, the orchestra played it perfectly and it will forever be the best version I will ever hear.
Thanks so much to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for such a wonderful performance.
Roll on the next!
