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1982 - FIVE MILES OUT TOUR

April 8 New York 10 Ottawa 11 Toronto 13 Montreal 14 Quebec 16 Philadelphia 17 Boston 18 New York (The Ritz) 21 Chicago 24 Vancouver 28 Los Angeles 30 San Francisco
May 6 Dunedin 7 Christchurch 9 Wellington 10 Auckland 13 Brisbane 15 & 16 Melbourne 17 Adelaide 18 Adelaide 20,21, 22 Sydney 26 Japan Tokyo
July 3 Denmark Copenhagen

7 on stage - Tim Renwick played bass and lead guitar, Mike played keyboards, Maggie Reilly Virginia Clee (vocals) Morris Pert & Pierre Moerlen (percussion) Rick Fenn (guitar) 2 drum sets. Keyboards players Devra Robitaille (DS 16,p21) Tim Cross played on the latter tour.

Most of the US venues were in medium sized venues for 1500-3000. The sets included all of Tubular Bells Part One, some of Ommadawn, Platinum, QE2 and most of the Five Miles Out album. It was a two-hour performance. An early tour set was Platinum (parts 1 & 2), Conflict, Sheba, Mirage, Tubular Bells (part 2) Taurus II, Ommadawn (1) Mount Teide, Five Miles Out, Tubular Bells (1) Orabidoo (middle section) as encore.

Mike did well in Canada where they had to add more dates because the venues sold out. "We've done a dozen dates here and its mainly been full houses" Tim Renwick told the Advertiser in Australia.

As usual, the music was well received by those without preconceptions. Australian paper The News (Adelaide) reviewed thus: "Oldfield and his band gave a large gathering of fans a faultless display of the unique brand of music. The band's professionalism is the first thing to register along with a sudden rush of diversity which marks all of Oldfield's works. Launching into two pieces from QE2, the audience was taken on a fantastic journey through unexpected tempo changes and mood modulation which, though positively experimental, can be easily digested. The visual effect was heightened by an overhead film and slide show, though the performance needed no outside help to deliver the message."

 

Mike bumped into Simon Phillips in New York at a hotel restaurant called Spare Ribs. That was to lead to another long working association. When Mike toured Australia Stefan Dennis, the Neighbours actor, worked for a bakery that made up a cake in the shape of an aeroplane for him. They took it to his hotel but because it had no air conditioning he got a mess of sloppy icing instead.



1982 WHO'S NEXT TOUR

September 8 Manchester Apollo, 9 Edinburgh Playhouse, 10 Sheffield City Hall, 11 Newcastle City Hall, 12 Birmingham Odeon, 14 Portsmouth Guildhall, 15 Oxford New Theatre, 16 London Hammersmith Odeon, 20 Norway Drammen, 22 Finland Helsinki, 23 Sweden Stockholm, 25 Gothenburg, 26 Copenhagen, 27 Alborg, 28 Denmark Lund 29 Arhus, Germany 30 Kiel
October 1 Berlin 2 and 3 Hamburg, 4 Bremen 6 Hannover, 7 Munster, 8 & 9 Essen, 10 Kassel, 11 Saarbrucken, 12 Karlsruhe, 13 Heidelberg, 14 Cologne, 15 & 16 Russelsheim, 17 Wurzburg, 18 & 19 Nurnberg, 20 Stuttgart, 21 Freiburg, 23 Passau, 24 Munich, 25 Ulm, 26 Freidrichshafen, 27 Augsburg, 28 Hof, 29 Offenburg, 31 Hanover
November 2 Cologne, 5 Offenburg, 6 Austria Innsbruck, 7 Linz, 8 Vienna, 9 Switzerland Zurich, 10 France Mulhouse, 11 Strasbourg 13 Paris 14 Dijon 15 Nancy 16 The Netherlands Utrecht 18 France Caen, 19 Rennes 20 Quimper, 21 Nantes 22 Poitiers 23 Clermont-Ferrand 24 Toulouse 26 Spain San Sebastian 27 Madrid 28 Barcelona 29 France Montpellier 30 Lyon
December 2 Rouen 3 Lille 4 Belgium Brussels 5 Luxembourg 6 Germany Cologne, 9 Munich

At Hammersmith Odeon and Edinburgh "In High Places" was quite different to its Crises version that was introduced by Mike as a "song about little people" and segued together with Etude. At Portsmouth Guildhall during Taurus II Mike knocked his chair over during one guitar solo. He put itching powder on and fire-crackers under the seats of certain critics at one concert .

Text © Mark Slattery
Photos © Thomas Rosenthal