Twelve years after the Ukes first walked on stage in front of a sold out audience at the Royal Albert Hall, they are releasing the full concert in digital format.
In 1985, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain dreamed of filling the Royal Albert Hall in London with the sound of its ukuleles, voices, jokes, and whistling. On Tuesday 18th August 2009, at the BBC Proms, the Ukes attracted a sold-out audience.
There were more than six thousand people, over a thousand of whom signed up to say they would bring along their ukuleles and join in. It is estimated that there were at least a further thousand who didn’t register but brought their instruments anyway.
The show features Dave Suich, Peter Brooke Turner, Hester Goodman, George Hinchliffe, Richie Williams, Kitty Lux, Will Grove-White and Jonty Bankes performing a concoction of UOGB classics including Sympathy for the Devil, Wuthering Heights, Teenage Dirtbag, the sea-shanty version of Pinball Wizard, Ride of the Valkyries and that “last night of the proms” classic: Jerusalem.
