Mike Oldfield (with guitar) performs with the Music Of The Spheres orchestra | Credit: Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ To Be Celebrated In 2024 Australian Tour

April 23, 2024

Tubular Bells – the 1973 debut album by composer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield – will be celebrated with a new live show that will be toured across Australia in August 2024. The full-band arrangement has been put together by longtime Oldfield collaborator and musical director Robin A. Smith, who will also serve as bandleader on the tour. A full run of dates can be found below.

Smith first premiered the new live version of Tubular Bells at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2021, and has been touring the performance globally ever since. “The wonderful thing about Tubular Bells is the way it evokes such melodic beauty and drama,” said Smith in a press statement.

“It’s as fresh today as it was when Mike created it in 1971. I love having the chance to bring it to new audiences – as well as those who, like me, are still captivated by it whenever they hear it.”

Smith and his ensemble will perform Tubular Bells in its entirety, as well as a second set of selected works of Oldfield’s from across his multi-decade career. Oldfield himself will not be appearing on the tour, having not performed live publicly since the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony in London.

Mike Oldfield – ‘Tubular Bells’ (Live at the BBC)

In addition to the 16-date Australian tour, Smith and his ensemble will also perform a one-off Tubular Bells show in New Zealand. They will take to the Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland on Thursday, August 1st ahead of the dates in Australia beginning two days later.

Oldfield originally released Tubular Bells in 1973, at the age of 19. It topped the charts in the UK, Canada and here in Australia; it has also been certified platinum 14 times over between those three. Three sequel albums were released later in Oldfield’s career: Tubular Bells II in 1992, Tubular Bells III in 1998 and The Millennium Bell in 1999.