WHEN Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark started out they were two teenagers with a cassette player in the middle of a dingy nightclub.

How different then, Saturday night’s gig in a grand Art Deco concert hall with a full orchestra.

And for the first half of the show they were not even on stage – watching their Energy Suite being performed by the RLPO in front of a backdrop films showing the imposing architecture of power stations and wind turbines.

Much of the original version, premiered at FACT in December, remains – sounds recorded within local power-generating sites and Hambi Haralambous’s moving images as crucial to the work as the music.

Divided into five movements – Gas, Water, Air, Nuclear and Coal – it has been arranged for orchestra by a number of composers working with OMD’s Andy McCluskey.

Gas opens heavily with woodwind, moving into a piece that is at times sweetly melodic and dissonant at others.

Water provokes thoughts of Smetana’s Vltava – starting with the patter of raindrops at the mountain source and flowing into a powerful melody as the screen fills with images of reservoirs.

The result is a bold work, that commands attention but never quite manages to surprise.

McCluskey and Paul Humphries joined the RLPO on stage for the second half – a reworking of 15 of OMD’s hits that finishes with an encore of Electricity and Romance.

The arrangements worked best on the more energetic songs – giving an anthemic treatment to Seven Seas, Walking on the Milky Way and Enola Gay. With others it was less successful, the delicate interjections in All That Glitters making it sound too much like the theme from a 1980s TV romance.

But the atmosphere was electrifying throughout – and it was exciting to be part of a musical experiment – hopefully one the RLPO will be willing to repeat one day in the future.

LAURA DAVIS