Oxygene was, perhaps, the most influential electronic album of all time.
While it owed much to earlier works by the likes of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, it captured the public's imagination like no other, selling by the proverbial bucket-load. So it was no surprise to find the concert hall sold out for this, the first date of French composer Jean Michel Jarre's European tour, celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the album's international release.
Emerging on to a stage that resembled a car boot sale in an electronics factory, Jarre, explained that he had decided completely to re-record the album, using only the original instruments and to tour on the same basis.
To that end, he explained, he had decided to play smaller venues so that "you could have an intimate experience with my vintage instruments". With Frances Rimbert, Claude Samard and Dominique Perrier taking up their stations to the rear of the stage, Jarre and his team produced a stunning rendition of the entire album, from the first swish to the final bleep.
Nothing sounds more like an analogue synthesiser than, well, an analogue synthesiser, and to let us have an even more intimate experience, a huge panel of mirrors was lowered from the lighting rig, angled in such a way as to let us see just who was playing what.
With his three colleagues working madly at what looked like a giant telephone exchange, Jarre produced an astonishing range of sounds from his bank of keyboards and, splendidly, a theremin.
The ageing electronics survived to the end, as did their operators, and after a solo encore of Oxygene 13, Jarre left to a rapturous standing ovation.
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