I thought Mike Oldfield was just a studio musician who multi tracked everything and made bell-like clangings. Wrong. Mike Oldfield is one of the most talented composers and performers I've ever had the pleasure to watch. It took this DVD to open my eyes to this fact.

    Side one (Tubular Bells II) has Mike performing most of the numbers the majority of listeners would be familiar with - The Bell, Tattoo, Altered State - Side 2 (Tubular Bells III) is for diehards as most of the material is not "commercial" enough to have been played on radio or videoclipped for TV.

    Tubular Bells II was recorded at Edinburgh Castle and the venue adds to the presence of the whole evening, one of the highlights involves The Royal Dragoon Guards Pipes and Drums who magically appear halfway up the Castle wall and bring a whole new dimension to the performance.

Mike Oldfield writes all his own material and plays just about everything from guitars, banjo, keyboards, vocals and tubular bells. The backings are lavish with 3 guitarists and 4 keyboard players all melding with 3 backup singers and a multitude of other percussionists and musicians.

Sound recording is studio quality but with an ambience not possible in the confines of 4 walls. Audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and Linear Stereo PCM. The surround effects are subtle and don't intrude on the performance. Bass lines via the LFE are laid back but effective. The visuals are stunning although video quality is average.

Mike Oldfield's music transcends the boundaries of musical definitions. One of our customers, a famous FM Jock (classical FM that is) rates this DVD as one of his favourites, whilst good old rocker me also rates it up there with the best.

If there's one thing reviewing all these musical DVD's has taught me, it's that all this debate on DTS Vs Dolby Digital becomes irrelevant when the constraints of recording technique and mixdowns are added to the equation. This DVD is in Dolby Digital and beats the pants off any DTS disc I've heard, but that's not due to the recording method or compression ratio's - just the content.

This DVD is part of my trio of set-up discs and is a "Must Have"

Audio - 5 out of 5

Video 4 out of 5

Content 5 out of 5