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Special report
Jean-Michel Jarre’s retro-futurism
In concert at Paris-Bercy
Paris
26/03/2010 -
These days Jean-Michel Jarre’s shows are not as flamboyant as they used to be. The French electronic music maestro no longer performs in front of the Eiffel Tower as he did in 1995, or at the pyramids in Cairo as in 1999. This year it’s just the usual concert halls, like everybody else!
After concerts in Germany, Poland and several French cities, Jean-Michel Jarre finally arrived in Paris where he performed at the Palais-Omnisport at Bercy. It is the capital’s largest performance space: if Jean-Michel Jarre has somewhat scaled down his shows, they are still monumental affairs.
That didn’t stop the show being more or less sold out. Scanning the audience, it seemed there were as many balding heads as there were baseball caps. The fiftysomethings, who had been around twenty when Oxygène was released in 1976, had turned out en masse. It was this album that really popularised the whole genre of synthesiser music based on strong melodies and pop hooks. Jarre had got there just after Kraftwerk, but just before the Greek composer Vangelis.
At around nine o’clock, the lights go down as a rumble emanates from the speakers. Jean-Michel Jarre makes a surprise entry from the back of the concert hall in the middle of the audience, picked out by a spotlight. He shakes hands with a few lucky fans before descending a stairway down to a vast stage. Grabbing a mike he thanks the audience for coming, and for a moment it feels more like a political meeting than a concert. Musical proceedings kick off with the ethereal sounds of Oxygène, the huge hit album that won Jarre global recognition and went on to sell 12 million units.
Hit me with your laser beam
Oxygène’s second track is just as atmospheric as the first, with its layers of synthesised sound and heavy bass shaking an audience not quite ready to let loose yet. A huge screen appears behind the stage with 3D imaging plunging us deep into the insides of machines and electronic circuitry, as the four performers move onto Equinoxe. Jean-Michel Jarre moves front stage and nine laser beams surge up from the ground – another of Jarre’s signature visual tricks that he’s used to dramatic effect in previous shows.
The mad professor
As the strains of Oxygène return, Jean-Michel Jarre straps on his famous Moog guitar synthesiser, another of bit of stage business he’s become celebrated for. His image splits up on the huge screen, and thanks to his special glasses equipped with a mini camera, we can see him up close surrounded by his instruments, one hand twiddling a button, the other playing the keyboard.
Among his many collectible instruments, Jarre owns a Theremin, which is played without touching it, simply by waving one’s hands between two antennae. With his two hands raised above this sort of wooden pulpit, Jean-Michel Jarre gesticulates like an orchestra conductor, producing sounds that at times resemble a musical saw, or even a human voice. Strange twin figures created by the artist Michel Granger appear on the screen to the sound of Équinoxe 4. Jarre uses the track to illustrate the visionary aspect of his album Equinoxe (1978), whose theme is the preservation of our planet. After an interlude with Jarre alone on the keyboard against a screen backdrop of disturbing figures (global population growth, peak oil, population without drinking water, etc.), Jarre and his acolytes rouse the audience with a huge brass sound, drums and a synthetic choir complete with stunning laser show, worthy of a production of the recent monumental production of Aida at the Stade de France.
It is the pumped-up version of Revolution followed by the inimitable melody line of Rendez Vous 4 that finally get the audience up on its feet. The two-hour concert ends with Oxygène once again, then a whistling synth-guitar solo from the hit En Attendant Cousteau. All in all, it’s back to the future with Jean-Michel Jarre, who is due to release a new album in the autumn before taking to the road once more.
In concert 10 October (London), 13 October (Clermont-Ferrand), 15 October (Rouen), 16 October (Lille).
Nicolas Dambre
Translation : Hugo Wilcken
12/12/2007 -
11/10/2004 -
31/08/2004 -
03/01/2000 -
