About this deal
This single CD release was largely made of tracks from the original remix album, with some additional new remixes by Tom Middleton and DJ Keltech, and hip-hop versions of two tracks by DJ Zube.
The release touted the usual "big and bold lighting, pyrotechnics and other-worldly special effects, as well as a ground-breaking levitation effect". Jimmy Nail played Parson Nathaniel, Daniel Bedingfield was The Artilleryman, and Heidi Range appeared as Beth.Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds – The New Generation is a 2012 concept album by Jeff Wayne and is a re-working of his 1978 concept album, retelling the story of the 1898 novel The War of the Worlds by H. Upon learning that Burton was in a production of the play Equus in New York City, Wayne delivered a letter with a copy of the album's script to the stage doorman and hoped for him to read it. A prologue was performed as a pre-show segment with the characters performing among the audience rather than on stage. O'Neill appears a final time at the end of the show, just before the NASA epilogue, this time as a 79-year-old Wells, elderly and in a wheelchair.
The role of Parson Nathaniel was originally given to Free and Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers, and although Wayne thought he delivered "fantastic" vocals, Rodgers was reluctant to take on the speaking part and dropped out. They set off for London—the Journalist to ensure his lover Carrie is safe, the Artilleryman to report to headquarters—but are soon caught in a crossfire between soldiers and Martians and are separated.
This is not a shot-by-shot remake of the 2006 DVD; it’s unashamedly Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds but also not afraid to be it’s own entity. Following its release in November 1978, Wayne had to re-do the album because Quinn's script was in Mexican Spanish and not Peninsular Spanish. In response to the COVID-19 shutdown, the musical was streamed for free from October 23-25, 2020, on the YouTube channel The Shows Must Go On. It was important for Wayne that the different voices on the album sounded "convincing and believable". War of the Worlds was re-mounted in 2007 with small adjustments making use of new technologies, touring Australia, New Zealand and the UK.