‘You’re in for a very loud evening,” warned Mark Ball, the Southbank Centre’s artistic director, to whoops of audience approval. True by classical music standards, but I doubt these were decibel levels to write home about for the rock and heavy metal regulars. And yes, this latest programme in Multitudes – the centre’s annual “orchestra-powered” multi-arts extravaganza – attracted a crowd in which band T-shirts, black lipstick and leather mingled with office wear, fleeces and everything in between.
The Philharmonia had swapped white tie and tails for further smatterings of leather jackets and band merch. Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali reappeared after the interval wearing industrial quantities of eyeliner. Among other things, this concert was a reminder of just how spectacular a big orchestra can be. As I heard someone marvel after the first half: “You think, ‘where’s that sound coming from, then?’”
Above all, it was a performance that revelled in the power of sound. In Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, the Philharmonia strings were disconcertingly tinny thanks to heavy amplification. But the payoff came when the orchestra was joined by two electric guitars, electric bass and drumkit – positioned behind thickets of protective Perspex – in an arrangement that simultaneously turned up Wagner’s bass and the rhythmic drive.
Other classical hits (Holst’s Mars, an unlikely blast of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth, the Presto from Vivaldi’s Summer) jostled symphonic arrangements of rock favourites. The Philharmonia’s strings and harp served up live cosmic shimmer in Metallica’s Orion and delicious trumpet squeals in Suzi Quatro’s Can the Can. Quatro provided more punk than pitch in her own song, but her alto profundo was surprisingly effective in Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. The Kills’ Alison Mosshart and Finnish rocker Mr Lordi brought additional star power, the latter commanding audience clap-alongs.
That this gently anarchic mashup was so persuasive was ultimately thanks to Rouvali. Energetically engaged through classical and rock numbers, the sometime rock drummer swapped his podium for the kit in Lordi’s 2006 Eurovision-winning Hard Rock Hallelujah, deftly driving this concert to its close from rock’s own engine room.