It’s been a long wait but the show Fink played in April 2012 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam is released today as a live album. Fink Meets the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is beautifully packaged and accompanied by a photo bookpack with photos of the performance from Tommy N Lance stunning as well as liner notes by the band.
Fink’s music was rearranged for the orchestra by composer and orchestrator Jules Buckley, one of the most in-demand arrangers in Europe. He is Music Director of the Heritage Orchestra and has worked with Cinematic Orchestra, Basement Jaxx and Arctic Monkeys, amongst others. His instinctive understanding of how to harness the huge power of an orchestra to play songs by contemporary musicians verges on the genius.
we did something so few artists of any calibre ever get to do – play with one of the worlds greatest symphony orchestras… maybe just once… maybe just for one night… but we did it… 3 guys who met in the Holly Bush in 2005 to talk about recording some music for Ninja Tune were walking offstage of the Concertgebauw with flowers… strangely we analysed the gig like we do any other gig when we got backstage – Guy thought he was rushing a bit on Yesterday, I thought Berlin was a little stiff, was PD a bit slow? – but then we had to kinda check ourselves… what were we talking about?… however it went, it went, and it went awesome… that was that – and before we knew it we were in the Conductors ante-chambre via a secret passageway (just to add to the bodice-ripping drama of it all) drinking champagne, shaking hands and doing the equivalent of a backstage scenario at a gig – only with all the lights very firmly on, no-one is wasted, and we’re the youngest people in the room…