EXPOSED

I remember hearing this album when it first came out--long before I ever heard Incantations. I remember feeling amazingly surprised at the sound quality once I found out it was the recording of a live concert performed in Spain! Now as I listen to it 45-years later I am still so shocked at the wonderful (masterful!?) sound captured by the sound and recording engineers. (Some of you may know that I have a particular aversion to live recordings precisely because of the typically horrendous sound and mixes.) This is quite literally the first time I've listened to Exposed since about 1981. As I look at the lineup of musicians on board for the concert tour I am blown away to see a veritable Who's Who of Prog All-stars: Peirre & Benoit Moerlin! Maddy Prior! Pekka Pohjola! Tim Cross! David Bedford! And then to find a live performance video of the same tour on YouTube (from a 1979 performance at Wembley Conference Centre)! I am in heaven!

Though I later became quite familiar and fixated on the whole of Incantations (note my five star review from February of 2011), and had obsessed over Tubular Bells from the time I purchased it during the Exorcist craze, I never would have believed that they could have been performed live! With a travelling orchestra, of course! So, I don't mind the edited versions of the studio songs that I knew so well because the highlighted areas are so well done! I am just so happy that this era of the Mike Oldfield being has been so captured and honored! (I've not liked much of his output since 1979.)

I'm sad that you don't hear any of Pekka's play in the Incantations excerpts whereas he's quite prominent throughout Tubular Bells (though not given much room for improvisation). Also, I love the middle sections of Tubular Bells here performed with expanded rock and orchestral arrangements for their reminders of how much other great folk- and classical-themes were present on the original TB recording.

The music is great. The sound and recording is amazing. The performances are top notch. (They all appear to be having great fun throughout their campy performance of Tubular Bells.) Heck! I can even tolerate the discofied "Shaft"-"Popcorn" blend that is "Guilty" when it's in the flow of this lineup! And then I have only to remember that this is Mike Oldfield captured at the end of his best period. What more could you want?