Live Review

The Bays and Heritage Orchestra – Royal Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

• 23rd Jan 2008

In this the first ever Fresh Festival to take place in Liverpool, The Philharmonic Hall, The Magnet and The Hope Street Hotel were hosts to live music events that mixed both contemporary and classical sounds for an original if almost clandestine weekend programme.

From the comfortable confines of the finest locations the city has to offer, some of the most diverse and innovative sounds were generated and the meeting of ideas old and new saw electronic, jazz and classical music meet head on in a harmonious collision which culminated with the highlight of the festival, the Heritage Orchestra performing alongside The Bays in a revolutionary set-up conducted by John Metcalfe and Simon Hale.

The orchestra have in the past collaborated to great success and acclaim with the UK’s multiple DMC champion DJ Yoda and now showed they are a bunch of classical divas with great music taste as they combined with The Bays to produce a show of great depth on a mind-boggling evening of delightful musical entertainment.
In its unique setup, the entirely improvised performance was one of a kind the likes of which, to our knowledge, had never before been attempted. A live score is composed and beamed instantly to the orchestra with incomparable technical equipment, with the cutting edge of a samurai’s sword and synched together on the spot by the four members of The Bays and somehow it all stays in time.

The sound is rounded by the VJ projecting onto three large screens that formed the emotional and curious backdrop for the spine-tingling performance.

Although heavily orchestral-driven, the sounds varied from moods of chilled-out ambience through house music to some of the most spectacularly epic techno that climaxed with the finale of a drum and bass crescendo.

But did it sound good? Yes, yes it did. Glasswerk.co.uk rates Fresh Festival’s headline of The Bays and The Heritage Orchestra as one of the top ten live experiences you must see before you die, which is largely pointless because each show is a one-off, never to be recreated, never the same twice. So next time, keep your eyes peeled.