Jean Michel Jarre in Stockholm, April 4, 2008

Jean Michel Jarre keeps himself so busy, that his 30th anniversary tour for the legendary album Oxygene arrives to a city near you a couple of years late. That has not stopped the spring 2008 tour from being practically sold out all over Europe. Neither the fact that it was 11 years ago that Jarre last played in Sweden prevented the concert from being sold out in 20 minutes, around 1600 tickets.

As a kid, Jean Michel was very fond of circuses and travelling fun fairs that would arrive in his city, set up their tent for one night, and be gone the next. It was thus only fitting that the venue selected for the Stockholm performance of Oxygene was Cirkus, previously a permanent fairground, now converted into an intimate concert arena. The lights are dimmed and the warm-up long-form track Waiting for Cousteau fades out, and then Jarre surprisingly pops out from his egg chair and greets the audience. From among the audience, someone shouts in poor English; “welcome to Sweden”. Jarre didn’t hear it well and asked that the fan repeats himself, after which Jarre said; “I didn’t hear everything you said, but I agree”. During his following opening speech to the audience, Jarre not only explained why he is doing the tour and why the instruments are unique. He also explained (to great cheering) that he was pleased to play in Sweden again, as Sweden is on the cutting edge of environmental technology, and he felt that it was a good country to play Oxygene in.

He then introduced his three fellow musicians, Claude Samard, Dominique Perrier and Francis Rimbert. Jarre went on and explained that “these old ladies must be tuned”, followed by the band testing and tuning the almost 50 old synthesizers that were on stage. Obviously, the synths must have been tuned several times during the day and I suspect this last fine-tuning is Jarre’s way of visualizing the fragility of the synths, and preparing the audience for any errors that might occur.

The new overture then opened the Oxygene suite. The audience soon got into the vibe and greeted Jarre again at the first tones of Oxygene 1, and at the beat of Oxygene 2 they followed Jarre’s invitation to clap in synch with the music. Oxygene 2 sounded tighter and heavier than in Paris 4 months earlier, and the fluty lead synth towards the end did not go bonkers, as it has done a few times at other concerts, due to machinery failure. Oxygene 4 is an iconic pop cultural phenomenon beyond the synthesizer crowd, and its fat bass intro was supported by more clapping, cheering and whistling from the audience, which by now had warmed up and proved to be very enthusiastic about Jarre, the music and the show.

The concert had been advertised as “the complete Oxygene” and I wondered how the crowd would react to the new tracks, Variation parts 1 - 3. But Jarre did not need to fear the response; the various performances (Theremin, Moon Liberation “keytar”, ribbon controller, live knob twisting, Digisequencer trigging and downright Eminent hammering) captured the listeners’ attentions and minds, and were very well received. The upbeat Variation 3 went especially well down as a natural extention to the original opus, with the crowd sounding out their excitement.

The visual part of the concert had not changed significantly since Paris last December. Usually an important part of a Jarre concert, the visuals for this tour are toned down to a minimum, with sometimes only a green or red or yellow wash of floodlights on the back screen, functioning as a simple but very beautiful frame for the music. Occasionally, rainbow patterns lit up the instruments with sharp precision, or flashes of synched beams created a 3D-like depth on the stage. The huge mirror above the stage was the main visual effect, and I can imagine how Jarre had sat down and tried to come up with a stage design that would be ergonomic, easy and affordable to tour with, exciting for the audience and at the same time showing off the instruments. The mirror in the ceiling takes care of all that, but it also has another function; reflection. And by that I believe Jarre means we should reflect, think and ponder about our environment, the theme of the album. The global challenges we are facing now require a new mental state, a force of the will. Reflection is therefore essential, and the mirror symbolizes that. At the same time, we get to focus on the music, rather than flashy visuals. Another function is that the audience get to see the entire band, and not only a mountain of synthesizers with Jarre in front of it, and three musiciand barely visible. The mirror almost projects the stage towards the audience so that we get to be mentally on the stage, not just in front of it. Nevertheless, during Variation 3, there was a new visual effect compared to the Theatre Marigny performance; white rectangular very thin squares that flashed across a red backdrop in synch with the music, and growing in size as the music went on. A little Kraftwerk-ish and simple, but very effective because you start to follow the pattern and how it randomly develops.

As in Paris before, Oxygene 12 finished off the concert, with the Circle of Life video projected on the back screen. A better closing track than Oxygene 6 perhaps, as it juiced up the audience and made them clap and sweat a little again. The audience really appreciated the concert so far, and when Jarre, Rimbert, Samard and Perrier went to the front of the stage to receive praise, they were greeted by fans who rushed to the stage and waved their hands in the air. The four musicians left, but were called back to the front of the stage twice after that, with standing ovations and the audience clapping and thumping their feet so that the floor of the hall literally rumbled. The cheering would not stop; after leaving, Jarre was called out to the stage once again, where he thanked the audience for being truly fantastic. Jarre also took his time to shake hands with eager fans, and one girl who shouted “je t’aime” got a kiss on her hand by the Maestro. Jarre then left the stage, but yet anonther return was demanded by standing ovations and thundering feet. And yet again Jarre appeared, this time without any co-musicians. He sat down at the Eminent, and performed Oxygene 13 as the encore, with the mirror showing him and his “lady instruments” from above. The song was framed by improvised soundscapes and effects, bubbling synth sounds and spooky pads which sort of felt a little alien since the song itself is very harmonic and structured. But Jarre definitely had the crowd in his arms, and they reacted with more cheering and clapping, which went on for several minutes as Jarre again stated how happy he was with the audience, and that he hopes to be back soon.

Media reviews after the concert were mixed, with most being medium kind to Jarre, and one totally burying him. While Jarre is a great commander of his massive fan base, critics do not seem to understand the Frenchman, who has not embraced dance music and leaves much to the viewers’ and listeners’ own imagination. Maybe that is the explanation; maybe media critics, who grew up on traditional rock & roll and only have read about electronic music, lack a deeper understanding about what electronic music really is. Oxygene (and Jarre in general) is not utilitarian music, like music for dancing, meditation, etc. While using the same instruments and coming from the same period in music history, Jarre is often compared to Krafterk but they are completely different traditions, with Jarre going more in the jazz and classical direction than many other 1970s pioneers. Oxygene in Stockholm proved that Jarre has more in common with serious music (while still being fun and sexy) than his musical “children” Air, Daft Punk or Sebastastien Tellier. Too bad many critics did not hear Jarre’s unique music for what it really is this night.

Then again - 1600 fans enjoyed a concert that to them, based on their feedback to Jarre, was truly unique and amazing. Which is what counts.

(Published courtesy of www.planetorigo.com)