The Martians are Coming

Dead London, by Geoff Taylor from the album

"Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds"
Ollie Record Productions, 1978

The friendly rivalry between Wellington and her northern sister city continues! In addition to slightly higher temperatures, Aucklanders can soon lay claim to one other thing that Wellington does not have: a live performance version of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds is coming to Auckland's Vector Arena on Friday, 28 September.

The ironclad HMS Thunderchild is destroyed by a martian
war machine in this original artwork by Mike Trim from the 1978 album

The show, which apparently features a giant martian war machine, sold out to huge crowds in the UK and has also been touring Australia. Even if you can't go see it, I encourage you to check out the official website for live show production, especially if you haven't heard or seen the original album before.

In addition to information about the live tour, it features heaps of information about the original production, including artwork from the album. Some of the artwork by Peter Goodfellow, Geoff Taylor and Michael Trim was quite spectacular. Perhaps best of all, the site features a stream of the music (classified as 'progressive rock' by Wikipedia) from the original album, complete with narration by Richard Burton.

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