Bond at the Royal Albert Hall

On Sunday October 7th, bond appeared live at the Royal Albert Hall, London. I was priveliged enough to be there, and here's my review!

First of all, we had the three brothers, the support for the girls. A fantastic trio, they performed, played and presented their songs very well, and I applaud their performance. However, it also successfully built up the atmosphere in the Hall, as everyone was awaiting bond.

There was quite a large time gap between the support and bond but it was worth the wait! Out they strutted, Haylie with her hair up in a ponytail (although it fought with her throughout the performance), Eos (complete with gorgeous black trousers), Gay-Yee (looking amazing, and as always bringing her trusty electric cello), and Tania (who had the coolest viola I've ever seen, and this groovy bracelet thing!) Before they actually arrived on stage, Hymn was played in teh background before the live music got underway, although I wont reveal the order so as not to spoil future performances!

They did extremely well playing the entire set live, but they also had some new electric instruments, so keep a look out. They are a lot chunkier than the instruments they usually play (but Gay-Yee still had the same cello), and the viola and violins didn't seem to match each other, but they were very impressive. Haylie's violin was red (as expected!), Eos' was silver (and very nice!) and I think Tania's viola was either black or dark blue.

Haylie, as usual, played the audience well when she was given the microphone, but one of the parts where bond were addressing the audience which sticks in my mind is when Tania was introducing Kismet. She said something along the lines of, "For the last few nights I've been telling the audiences what I thought motivated Gay-Yee to write Kismet, and tonight I actually asked her! And she said she wanted to write a piece with a really big cello solo!"

Nearing the end of the night, Gay-Yee informed us it was the last song of the night, and everyone moaned, but the girls were kind enough to leave the stage and come back, and leave and come back again, because they just couldn't leave without playing 'Duel' for a second time, and finishing with 'Viva!'. Just before they played Viva! Haylie said "if anyone's got the guts, maybe we could have a little party on stage!", and I so wanted to get up there! The only problem was, I was sat right in the middle of one of the rows and was well and truly sandwiched! However, my sister and I both leaped out of our seats to clap and yell when the show was over!

My only problem throughout the show (bearing in mind I was about 6ft away from them) was that, just as bond were about to come on, this really tall guy came and sat right in front of me!! My sister and I switched seats, but then he was just in my line of vision, and unfortunately, all I saw of Haylie for most of the performance (except when she practically serenaded someone) was her bow going at about 300mph either side of this guys head!! Having said that, in the last number she took her hair out of its ponytail, and there was so much of it over her face when she was playing, that I wasn't the only one having trouble seeing her!!

The only world I can think of to describe the show is 'FANTABULOUS!' OK, so that's not a word, but it does describe it!