Jean Michel Jarre at Glasgow SECC, 4th June 1997
Report by Grant Middleton
Myself and Craig Cordrey arrived at Glasgow after roughly an hour's
drive. Massive queues. Waited in line and could hear the sound
checks from the concert hall. Boom ! Bop ! Bang ! That's one
mighty ginormous PA you've got there, monsieur.
Eventually we get to sit down. Glimpses of loverly analogue gear.
Minimoog, Mellotron, ARP 2600. Glimpses of something even rarer
than a Mellotron - women at an e-music gig ! And not just some
women - many women. Not just many women - most are stunning !
Is it his Gallic good looks ? Who cares - let's ogle !
Gig starts. Lights go down. Big screeny type curtain thingy
in front of the stage. See various bodies walking around
behind. Image of The Man, backlit, projected onto screen.
Two red dots for eyes. Screen falls. Laser beam shoots from
bottom of stage to roof of hall. Mechanical groans and
whirring electrics spread the beam into many smaller beams
fanning out into the famous Laser Harp. Straight into
Oxygene 7. Holy s**t, it's loud ! In go the ear plugs (for
which I'm immensely thankful today). Very close to the
original sound, with added drums. But hey, is he actually
/playing/ the laser harp ? Sorry, folks - just a visual prop.
OK, let's treat it as pure entertainment. For the chorus
section, run over to Mellotron MkII. Glorious string sounds.
After this, I get to check out the gear. For the tech-heads,
he was using :-
Nord Lead x 2
Nord Lead MkII (prototype direct from Sweden)
Quasimidi Raven
Moog System 55
EMS Synthi A x 2
EMS VCS3
ARP 2600
Eminent electric organ / string machine
Mellotron MkII
Straight into Oxygene 2. As I said to Craig; "I think I've
just died and gone to Heaven". I was finally getting to
see The Man play his VCS3 live, in the best ever tune for
it !...
...or rather I was going to see JMJ pretending to play
his VCS3 and two other keyboards whilst a backing tape
played the exact sweeps from the original. I know I
should have expected it, but I was still seriously
disappointed. I could be wrong, but Joe Public didn't
seem bothered by it. I guess I'm just a synth-geek.
Other tracks played...
All of Oxygene 7-13, as far as I could remember.
Magnetic Fields 2.
Revolutions. He was running around the stage,
with a bullhorn in his hand, miming the vocoded
speech at the crowd. Excellent visual impact.
Equinoxe 4, unfortunately without the 'alien goblin' sounds.
Equinoxe 7.
Oxygene 4. Before this, a roadie brought on his new Nord Lead 2.
Apparently, he was given this when he was gigging in Sweden by
the manufacturers. He programmed up 4 of the lead sounds from
Oxygene 4, and demonstrated the keyboard using them. People
started to recognise the sounds and knew that Oxy 4 was on the
way. The original hit single ! It was well performed.
Before playing Oxy 9, a roadie brought on his Theremin, and
JMJ talked about its inventor, Leon Theremin and how he was
sent on a world tour by Stalin to show the world the technological
prowess of the Soviet Union. It certainly is a very visual
instrument, and Jarre hammed it up for everyone, waving his
hands around like some weird sorcerer, surrounded by tons of
strobe lighting. It was obvious that he wasn't really playing
the melody to Oxy 9 on the Theremin, but it was a good show.
Oxygene 5 was a bit odd to say the least. All the band members
gathered round Jarre's central keyboard rig and played various
bits of gear. The percussionist had on a weird percussive
body suit. The 'jam session' which evolved into Oxy 5 was a
tiny bit haphazard. OK, let's be honest, it sounded like a
roomful of schoolkids practising kazoo. Very strange and
downright loose in feel.
All in all though, the show was very very cool. It's obvious that
Jarre feels that creating a spectacle is more important than being
totally honest about your performance. For 99.9% of the audience
in Glasgow, I'm sure he's absolutely right. The gig was sold out
and the crowd kept clapping for more encores. Indeed, Jarre seemed
genuinely touched by the response, and dedicated his last tune,
Oxygene 13, to the Scottish crowd. Of course, the cynic in me
thinks that he dedicates the last song at all the gigs to that
particular crowd. :(
Would I go again ? Yes, absolutely. Would I have been disappointed
if I'd missed it ? Damn right - in fact I'd have built it up in my
mind to the biggest thing ever if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes
and heard it with my own ears. Would I recommend it ? Yes - it's an
entertaining night out, and Monsieur Jarre is doing more than
anyone else on the planet to get e-music into mainstream
consciousness (and get chicks at gigs). Good work, fella !
Grant Middleton, 5th June 1997
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