Star Wars on Ice
I have been a fan of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of War of the Worlds since my Mum brought the LP (that’s the big round black vinyl things, before tapes and way before CDs) back in the late 70s. I was just a wee nipper and parts of the soundtrack sent me hiding behind the sofa, but I loved it. I was devested when the voice, Richard Burton passed away in 1984 and listened to the album as he was buried in Switzerland.
Now image my excitement when I heard that the team behind the album had decided to take it all on the road. I drove into the car park at the Acer Arena with my friend Todd sat next to me, the complete War of the World virgin. He was laughing so hard when I told him I didn’t want to miss the opening and then did my best Richard Burton impression. He kept asking me about it and I had difficulty explaining it as anything other than a rock opera based on the HG Wells book. ‘Ohh my god…you’ve taken me to Star Wars on ice’.
The sell out crowd gathered and waved at the camera projecting shots into the eyes of the Tripod on the screen. I knew it was a Tripod, but those that didn’t looked confused. The lights went down and a hush descended with them. The stage had a string section sat on the right and a full on rock band on the left, behind them was a huge landscape screen. I was expecting the sound of the Narrator (Richard Burton) to open with famous first line but instead we got a three minute screen presentation of the Martians discussing taking out earth. It was not what I had been expecting, but then, I wasn’t really sure what I had expected, so went with the flow.
There was a brief pause before the stage went dark and a hologram projection of Richard Burton appeared and then, ‘No-one would have believed…’ you could have heard a pin drop. It was amazing. From that moment on the entire audience was hooked and held captive. There were a few deviations for the original soundtrack, but these only added, like the harp, it didn’t appear in the original but it sound blended perfectly to highlight a few key areas. The overriding bass was key to the arrival of the Martians and a clue to the sound of many bands playing around Sydney.
Now image my excitement when I heard that the team behind the album had decided to take it all on the road. I drove into the car park at the Acer Arena with my friend Todd sat next to me, the complete War of the World virgin. He was laughing so hard when I told him I didn’t want to miss the opening and then did my best Richard Burton impression. He kept asking me about it and I had difficulty explaining it as anything other than a rock opera based on the HG Wells book. ‘Ohh my god…you’ve taken me to Star Wars on ice’.
The sell out crowd gathered and waved at the camera projecting shots into the eyes of the Tripod on the screen. I knew it was a Tripod, but those that didn’t looked confused. The lights went down and a hush descended with them. The stage had a string section sat on the right and a full on rock band on the left, behind them was a huge landscape screen. I was expecting the sound of the Narrator (Richard Burton) to open with famous first line but instead we got a three minute screen presentation of the Martians discussing taking out earth. It was not what I had been expecting, but then, I wasn’t really sure what I had expected, so went with the flow.
There was a brief pause before the stage went dark and a hologram projection of Richard Burton appeared and then, ‘No-one would have believed…’ you could have heard a pin drop. It was amazing. From that moment on the entire audience was hooked and held captive. There were a few deviations for the original soundtrack, but these only added, like the harp, it didn’t appear in the original but it sound blended perfectly to highlight a few key areas. The overriding bass was key to the arrival of the Martians and a clue to the sound of many bands playing around Sydney.
- Richards Hologram (on the left)Justin Haywood and Chris Thompson appeared in their original roles as the sung thought of the narrator for ‘Forever Autumn’ and the voice of humanity for ‘Thunder Child’ while a Aussie cast gave voice to the rest of the characters. Micheal Falzon did a reasonable job as the Artilleryman, Rachael Beck past muster at Beth, the Parson wife. Surprisingly though was the Parson himself, played by the gravel voiced Phil Lynott (who past away in 1986) all those years ago, was being channelled by Shannon Noll. Todd reckons he always sound like that, but no.
The art work throughout on the screen was mixture of new digitally produce stuff that moved and the original artwork produced by Peter Goodfellow, but by far and away the most impressive was the enormous fighting machine that came from the high rigging and stood centre stage with menacing eyes and red laser heat rays.
- The TripodAll it all it was excellent and I was anything but disappointed. Todd came away keen to hear the original and I even managed to get my boobs signed by the Artilleryman, he’s no David Essex, but he’ll do ;-)
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