Concert review from a rare electronic music performance from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, live at London's Roundhouse.

Have Doctors. Will Travel.

Having made it to the previous relaxed and low-key Q & A audience sofa chat with the BBC Radiophonic crew (Dick Mills, Paddy Kingsland, Peter Howell, Roger Limb and Mark Ayres), I had to admit I really was not expecting to walk into later what looked like a grand Sci-Fi set of Kraftwerk (I was expecting more sofas, some cables and a couple of Modulars).

It was quite an eye opener from the start. The location was Camden's Roundhouse (London, U.K), or the inner sanctum of the metallic space dome, as it really is. Dark and eerie, with the occasional 70's and trippy projections on the periphery, it felt like we were awaiting the presence of the Daleks.

The concert began as it meant to go on with Dick Mills turning up in a lap-coat while twiddling the knob of a 1969 EMS VCS3 analog synthesizer, center stage (see photo). This spacey introduction brought the rest of the lab-coated professors on to open with a brilliantly bizarre robot track, vocoded of course in alien linguistics.

For men that have spent a lot of their lives hidden away in secret laboratory style music studios, they sure knew their performance dramatics. In fact the whole show was to be a synched audio visual feast; part documentary, part comedy (which boosted the entertainment) - these lads had this two hour plus set down to a tee, and it felt like they were not going to stop.

Although a lot of tracks played were echoing from my childhood I have to admit I barely recognised most, certainly if they were pre 70's I hadn't a clue, but that was a good thing I thought, as it meant I wasn't probably as old as some people in the audience.

The show took us through, with film footage visuals and live dialogue from each member, the historical archives of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Children's themes ("Words and Pictures"), a Hitch-hikers (Guide to the Galaxy) backing soundtrack without the talky bits, Doctor Who through the generations, John Craven's news-round and a poignant tribute to Delia Derbyshire, were among the highlights. There was also a great track from Howell on live vocoder.

You almost felt they were going to drop the ball at the last moment, but this proved to be unfounded, as the best was left till last (as they said themselves) ending in a slamming rendition of the Doctor Who theme: starting with Peter Howell's 80's electronic remix this built up to a full prog-rock epic with all workshop members and backing band in full force.

Certainly this was an electronic music performance beyond expectations, as these Grand-dads of the synthesizer world really provided us with an entertaining spaced-out music night. More please.

MIRAI  - MAY 17 2009 AD