A quick music trivia question. In 1987, who were the first British rock band to play a huge open-air concert in East Berlin prior to unification and the wall coming down? The Rolling Stones, Genesis or Pink Floyd perhaps? Wrong.

The answer, you may be surprised to hear, is Barclay James Harvest.

Seven years earlier, the progressive rock outfit from Oldham had performed an equally massive free concert in West Berlin, drawing an enormous 175,000 crowd to the steps of the historic Reichstag building, which cemented their enduring popularity, particularly in Germany and throughout Europe.

After a long, hardworking and occasionally fractious career, by 2002 the original band had effectively split in two, with bassist Les Holroyd and drummer Mel Pritchard taking one direction, while guitarist John Lees and keyboard player Stuart Wolstenholme formed their own group.

Now, after concentrating on their European market, Barclay James Harvest featuring Les Holroyd are preparing to play a 14-date tour of the UK.

"This line-up has been together since 2002, when we started recording the album Revolution Days' and most, if not all of this current band played on that album," said Les.

"Everyone got on so well, we decided to go out on the road, although at that time some of the guys had not played live for ages."

The Barclay James Harvest sound has always been synonymous with songs strong on melody and vocal harmony, backed by solid orchestral-rock instrumentation - think the Moody Blues with balls if you will - but has the new line-up kept the essence and spirit of the old BJH?

"I think so, and very much so, according to a lot of the people who have seen us recently," Les admitted.

"We have taken note of what many fans were saying regarding the back catalogue material and we try to incorporate as much as possible without going too far into the past."

Formed in 1967, BJH found an early champion in radio disc jockey John Peel, signing a recording deal with EMI who put them on their progressive and aptly named Harvest label.

On record, the four-piece experimented by adding woodwind, brass and mellotron to enhance their arrangements, then strained the expense account by touring the UK complete with a full orchestra.

Les said: "In the early 70s we took the orchestra to the Fairfield Halls.

"In fact, we played Croydon several times. We were one of those fortunate bands to be in at the beginning of the so-called progressive era', playing for a mainly student audience on the university and college circuit but also in concert halls."

Despite performing extensively across Europe, apart from a handful of shows working in Asia last year, this will be the first full tour of the UK for this six-piece line-up and Les is keen to reunite the British audience with the music of BJH.

"To some extent we lost touch with the UK by playing in Europe so much," he added.

"We are hoping that this tour is going to be the first of many. We would love to bring the orchestra over, that's definitely something we're looking at for the future."

  • Barclay James Harvest featuring Les Holroyd play at the Fairfield Halls on Tuesday, March 6. Tickets will be between £24.50-£26.50 and can be purchased by calling 020 8688 9291 and online at fairfield.co.uk.