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Three evenings of joy at The Roundhouse

2010-11-01T14:12:21+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/electricproms/2010/

I woke up on a high this morning. As well as Liverpool fighting their way out of the relegation zone, I experienced three amazing gigs at the BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Three iconic Radio 2 artists. Three very different, but equally ecstatic, audiences.

Elton John opened the proceedings. But this wasn't the huge arena show you might expect from one of our national treasures. Instead Elton performed in the intimate setting of London's Roundhouse with his idol Leon Russell, who first watched Elton perform in the early Seventies at LA's Troubadour club. Their recent album 'The Union' seems to have given Elton a new energy and vigour and like so many great creative people, he's re-invented himself once more. The unique collaborations are one of the joys of Electric Proms. Elton on stage with Plan B and with Rumer respectively showed how different generations can still be united by music.

The culmination of Friday night's Robert Plant was a spine-tingling performance with the London Oriana Choir which followed a rapturously received version of 'Rock n Roll'. As he reminded the audience, Robert had first performed on the Roundhouse stage with Led Zeppelin 40 years earlier. Four decades on, with the incredible Band of Joy, Robert Plant was as compelling as ever. BBC 2 has a real treat in store for fans of this extraordinary artist: The 'Robert Plant By Myself' documentary that transmits this Saturday evening is one of the most revealing interview for many years - the perfect compliment to the live performance.

The final show saw Radio 2 favourite Neil Diamond perform so many of those classic tunes that have made him such a loved songwriter, including songs that he's written for others, like The Monkees' 'I'm a Believer.' The Roundhouse crowd were in fine form singing and rowing along with Lulu as she performed 'The Boat that I Row'. I've never known an audience so full of love for their hero, which you will be able to see when the concert is broadcast on BBC 2 on Saturday 13 November.

If you had a chance to catch Simon Mayo's Radio 2 Drivetime show from the backstage bar at the Roundhouse you would have heard all the pre-gig gossip as well as live performances including Rumer singing a spellbinding version of Elton's Rocket Man, and Lissie performing Stairway to Heaven, both of which are available to listen to online.

Bob Harris's aftershow programme on Saturday night was the ideal way to reflect on the three spellbinding yet diverse gigs, which included live interviews with Lulu and Nell Brydon, both giving their verdicts on the performances. The audiences loved the memorabilia exhibition at the Roundhouse, and many fans have sent in pictures of their artefacts which are currently displayed on the Radio 2 website.

In case you missed any of the gigs, you can listen again on the Radio 2 web site (and in glorious HD Sound on the Electric Proms site) and watch on the red button. The Robert Plant and Neil Diamond concerts will be broadcast on BBC 2 on November 6 and 13 respectively.

Like the collaborations on-stage, the Electric Proms partnership between Radio Two and BBC Two gave both viewers and listeners a wholly unique experience. This is the first year that Radio 2 has programmed the concerts, and I'm proud of the efforts of Jeff Smith, Radio 2's Head of Music and his live music team in pulling off a stunning first Radio 2 Electric Proms.

Bob Shennan is Controller of BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music

Jeff Smith, head of Music at Radio 2 and 6 Music, wrote about the Radio 2 Electric Proms (and has responded to some comments from listeners) on the About the BBC blog.
The concerts were reviewed by many, including The FT, The NME and The Guardian.
The picture shows Robert Plant during his performance on Friday.

HD sound for the Electric Proms

2010-10-27T17:04:41+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/electricproms/2010/

You may have heard that we offered an extra high quality (320kbs AAC) online audio stream for the last week of the BBC Proms this year (read about the experiment on the BBC Internet blog). The feedback we received was almost universally good. Listeners really appreciated the richer sound quality which made a fairly obvious difference even to the casual listener. Well, I can now confirm that for the first time for non-classical output, we'll offer the same higher quality audio stream for this year's BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms concerts.

So if you listen to the concerts live via the Electric Proms web site you'll hear our highest ever audio stream quality. We'll also offer the full concerts on-demand in HD Sound, again exclusively via the Electric Proms site. If your connection cannot handle this new higher quality, you can choose to listen at the standard quality.

We chose to pilot HD Sound with the Electric Proms because these live concerts represent something unique, something you can't get elsewhere. Radio 2's Head of Music, Jeff Smith, has written a post for the About the BBC blog in which he explains the unique nature of this annual event. Of course, once we've assessed feedback from listeners and looked at the technical and cost aspects, we'll look to extend this improvement to other services.

Why is this important? Well with the growth of music streaming services such as We7, Spotify, Last.fm and of course YouTube, an increasing number of people are hooking up their home computers to high quality sound systems and speakers, meaning that what was previously acceptable in terms of sound quality for small computer speakers or cheap headphones is rapidly becoming less so.

As more and more people start to listen to music via internet streams, as opposed to listening from CDs or from downloaded audio files, we expect that it will sound at least as good. Similarly, as more people start to listen to radio online, both live and on-demand, we are way past the point where people will readily accept poor audio quality simply because it's being delivered over the internet.

So, if you're a fan of Elton John, Robert Plant or Neil Diamond, listen live or catch-up via the Electric Proms site. As Robert Plant once said, the song remains the same; it'll just sound better now.

Chris Kimber is Managing Editor at BBC Audio & Music Interactive

Read more about HD Sound in this blog post about the Radio 3 experiment and this FAQ.
The artists performing at the 2010 BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms are Robert Plant, Elton John and Neil Diamond. All the details are on the web site.
The picture shows two souvenir Neil Diamond figurines, submitted by Radio 2 listener Kathleen Mosley from Montrose in Scotland. View hundreds of other items of memorabilia on the Electric Proms web site.

Launching HD Sound

2010-10-18T09:09:29+00:00

As the leading players in the radio industry gather today in Salford for their annual get-together, much of the conversation will be about the topic of innovation. Listeners are currently very satisfied with radio services but digital technology does bring opportunities to keep improving what we offer. This summer, BBC Radio 3 completed a trial of a higher quality online audio stream at the Proms. A positive listener response led us to look at a permanent launch. Therefore, from the beginning of December, we will offer "HD Sound" (as we are calling it) on Radio 3 when you visit the station website and listen online. We will quickly assess the performance of this before making the higher quality stream available on iPlayer and the proposed radio industry player (called Radioplayer). Radio 3 listeners will get the benefit of the highest quality broadcast available anywhere. Interestingly, it was Radio 3 that led the charge in 1971 as radio moved to stereo, and once again it is excellent to see it at the forefront of innovation.

As with Stereo, I would expect to see further roll-outs of HD Sound over time and we have already announced that we will be trialling it for Radio 2 at the Electric Proms. I am expecting that the performances by Elton John,Robert Plant and Neil Diamond will all be available.

Tim Davie is the Director of Audio and Music at the BBC.

BBC Audio & Music's head of technology Rupert Brun, wrote about HD Sound on the BBC Internet blog this morning.
The photo above is of the BBC Symphony Orchestra rehearsing at the Barbican (c) BBC / Lara Platman.
"BBC Launches HD Sound for Radio" - press release, Oct 18 2010.