There's a rare opportunity tomorrow to hear seminal 70s album Tubular Bells performed live. David Whetstone talks to instigator Charles Hazlewood.

ANYONE who was sentient during the 70s will remember Tubular Bells, with affection or otherwise. Mike Oldfield’s extraordinary (you might say extraordinarily irritating) multi-instrumental album became part of the soundtrack of the decade.

It was released in 1973 when Oldfield, a doctor’s son, had just turned 20 and was cutting his teeth as a musician.

Record company after record company rejected it, believing it to be not only indefinable but unsaleable. And this is where we come across our first sort of North East angle because it was Richard Branson, recent purchaser of Northern Rock, who came to the rescue.

Oldfield recorded Tubular Bells in Branson’s studio and it became the debut release of Branson’s fledgling Virgin Records. Arguably, Branson’s business empire is founded on the success of this album.

In the mid-70s there seemed to be no escape from it. Or maybe that’s just me. For one long summer I worked in a small and eccentric hotel on the Isle of Wight, running the bar into the small hours. The proprietor had splashed out on two cassette tapes – Johnny Cash’s greatest hits and Tubular Bells. We played them alternately. People drank an awful lot.

But Tubular Bells did stay in the British charts for 279 weeks. When it finally reached number one, it displaced Oldfield’s second album, Hergest Ridge. Apparently this makes Oldfield one of only three UK artists to beat himself to the top of the charts.

Also in 1973 there was a landmark live “supergroup” performance of Tubular Bells at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Guitar maestro Steve Hillage and Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones were part of the line-up.

North East angle number two: a revival of that live Tubular Bells experience is to take place tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and tomorrow night in Hall One of The Sage Gateshead.

It comes to us courtesy of The Charles Hazlewood All Stars, a line-up featuring Adrian Utley from Portishead and Will Gregory from Goldfrapp.