Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Sound and light combine for amazing opening night
AFTER a five-year closure, live music returned to Bristol’s biggest concert hall on Thursday night with an offering so unusual and cutting-edge that every age group sat in awe.
The main auditorium has undergone a spectacular – though costly – refurbishment, featuring classic wooden panelling arching around the room.
Even the scent inside was new as you entered the vast hall, with a sweet pine aroma filling the space.
Before the main event began, Louise Mitchell, the chief executive of Bristol Beacon, reminded people that the venue’s primary mission was to ignite a passion and love for music among people from every walk of life.
And the organisers couldn’t have chosen a better opening act for that mission than Paraorchestra’s Trip the Light Fantastic.
Dressed all in white, the 50-strong orchestra created a musical and visual spectacle in the £132 million concert hall.
Alongside lead artist and composer Surgeons Girl, the sound was a unique blend, somewhere between an orchestra and a DJ set.
Composer Charles Hazlewood added extra drama to the musicians’ performance by placing a few players among the crowd, who jumped off their seats at well-choreographed moments to bring a truly panoramic sound to the show.
Genres jumped between electronic music and ambient jazz, with musicians playing everything from violins and saxophones to trombones.
Paraorchestra is made up of disabled and non-disabled players, who showcase their skills on a range of conventional and more novel instruments
Stunning light shows, created by Lmbic Cinema, brought the feeling you were falling through space during parts of the music. Other psychedelic visuals saw colours blending into others while the beats built up on stage.
The impressive 2,100-capacity hall has boosted the acoustic sound and that was evident on the night.
It was a real treat to hear music in the space, and Paraorchestra was the perfect, thought-provoking band to start the Beacon’s new legacy as a world-class music venue.
As impressive as the venue’s opening was, few in Bristol will forget that the redevelopment’s costs tripled from the original budget of £48 million as a result of unforeseen problems with the fabric of the Victorian building, compounded by the impact of the pandemic and skyhigh inflation, with the vast burden of funding landing on council taxpayers.