LMOLast Shadow Puppets
The LMO has played live with The Last Shadow Puppets on several occasions including several of their UK performances during 2008 performing songs taken from their hit album “The Age of the Understatement” The band opened the Nationwide Mercury Prize ceremony last September in the Grosvenor Hotel, London with an orchestral performance of their title song ‘The Age of the Understatement’. A 15 piece LMO was led by Cathy Thompson and conducted by Andy Brown. There was also an appearance on Jonathan Ross’ popular TV show where The Last Shadow Puppets performed “Standing Next to Me”, accompanied by a small group of LMO players.
Read a blog post about their tour in 2008 and LMO’s recording with Alex Turner
Echo and the Bunnymen
On Tuesday 16 September 2008 Echo and the Bunnymen performed live at the Royal Albert Hall, accompanied by LMO. The 16 strong orchestra was conducted by Rupert Christie and led by Cathy Thompson. For the show, which marked their 30th anniversary, Echo and the Bunnymen performed their 1984 classic album ‘Ocean Rain’ in its entirety.
This concert was reprised on 27 November 2008 to a sold out Liverpool Echo Arena.
Lou Reed
This summer of 2007 saw the European Tour of Lou Reed’s rock symphony Berlin.
Lou and his band ( were accompanied by the New London Children’s Choir and a chamber scale LMO comprising Andy Brown and Cathy Thompson – violas, Chris Fish – cello, Anthony Pike – clarinet and bass clarinet, Noel Langley – trumpet, Pete Beachill – tenor trombone and Pat Clahar – alto sax and flute.
There was another major Lou Reed European tour in 2008 which ran from 23rd June to 21st of 23rd July, Cork, Belfast, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Paris, Royal Albert Hall, London, Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallin, Riga, Warsaw, Brussels, Lisbon, Loule and Malaga.
LMO personnel were the same as the 2007 tour, apart from the saxophonist where Jamie Talbot replaced Pat Clahar.
Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse was LMO’s first ever engagement in 1987 - leading to 13 years and 33 episodes of recording which included many excerpts of classical music as well as Barrington Pheloung’s highly effective incidental cues for the films.
Concert for George
LMO was engaged for the Concert for George tribute to George Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall, London in November 2002.
Surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were joined on stage by Harrison’s guitarist son Dhani who bears an extraordinary resemblance to his late father at the height of Beatlemania in the 60’s. As McCartney said during the evening ‘It’s like the rest of us got old and George stayed young!’.
The concert, which marked the first anniversary of Harrison’s death, featured a string of Harrison hits including Here Comes The Sun, My Sweet Lord and Something.
Other stars taking part in the concert included music director Eric Clapton, Ravi and Anoushka Shankar, Joe Cocker, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, original Beatles producer Sir George Martin and former Monty Python members Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones.
LMO was conducted by another of Harrison’s close friends, Michael Kamen – who also wrote the song arrangements.