In August 2021, brothers Brian Eno and Roger Eno made musical history, performing together for the very first time. In the atmospheric surroundings of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ancient theatre on the slopes of the Acropolis, they gave a concert of music old and new as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival. Filmmaker Tilo Krause captured the occasion and his film Brian Eno & Roger Eno: Live at the Acropolis, Athens, is now set for broadcast on STAGE+ at 8:00pm CET on 10 March 2023 (with repeat screenings at 2am and 12pm on 11 March).

Roger and Brian were joined onstage at the UNESCO World Heritage Site by Leo Abrahams (guitars), Peter Chilvers (keyboards) and Roger’s singer and multi-instrumentalist daughter Cecily Eno (vocals, mandolin and ukulele).

Illuminated by stunning images created by Brian and projected on to the Odeon’s ancient walls, the programme ranged from Eno classics such as “Everything Merges With The Night” (from Brian’s 1975 album Another Green World) to new material, including “A Place We Once Walked” (from Roger’s The Turning Year) and “There Were Bells” – a track written by Brian for this concert and now featured on Foreverandevernomore, his heartfelt reflection on the global ecological and climate emergency. The event opened with a sequence of tracks from the Enos’ DG debut and first ever duo album Mixing Colours.
“In three days, in extreme heat and surrounded by forest fires, we rehearsed and literally sweated day and night in one of the finest venues imaginable,” recalls Roger. “I must admit that I wept with joy when Cecily sang, and to actually perform with my brother was in itself a treat – it was a big change from our guilty family secret of singing Country and Western songs in each other’s kitchens. Here, what we are was exposed to the world.”

The concert closed with Brian Eno’s “What A World It Could Have Been”, a melancholy meditation on the destruction of the biosphere. “I don’t perform live very often,” notes Brian. “But I couldn’t miss the chance to perform in what may be the world’s oldest theatre, located at the birthplace of western civilisation.” As it happened, the new songs I presented there felt like they were written at the end of that civilisation, a long and hopeful arc from the birth to the death of democracy. Or is it dying?”

“When we were playing in Athens, with the smoke of burning forests in the 45-degree sky above us, things didn’t look very promising,” he adds. “Now I see the beginnings of a revival – people realising that we stand to lose everything unless we do something. There was smoke in the air in Athens. Now there’s change in the air.”

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