While I’m waiting for my Eurostar back to London, here’s my Brussels concert review:
It was hot. Pushing 40 degrees in the city during the day and not much cooler in the evening. But this added to the atmosphere and the festival vibes. Water sprays were being set up across the crowd when we arrived.
The warm up acts were pretty good, especially Calumny, who set a great mood for the crowd with 30 mins to go. Think Daft Punk but without the helmets.
It was full. I understand it wasn’t sold out but it felt very busy. I wasn’t Golden Circle but further back and while it wasn’t a crush it was packed and busy which added to the atmosphere. Most of those near me were Brussels locals and, er a bit older. 40+ and I didn’t really set much of a younger crowd.
Got chatting to a group of 4-5 Belgians next to me, who had been at Paris La Defense and Europe In Concert too.
Musically, I think it worked great. A few tracks I thought were amazing were Oxymore which is brilliant through headphones and the reworked live version even better. And Arpeggiator is incredible live, and as Jote said earlier in this thread, it would have slotted right in during the Electronica tour.
The encore of Rendezvous 4 and then straight into Magnetic Fields 2 (with that solo) was also a great touch.
Brutalism was intense. The visuals plus the bass make it a great “festival “track. Loved it.
So those were my musical hits. What about the misses?
Nobody will ever convince me Exit is a good JMJ track. It’s not even a good track by anybody else. It’s no good through headphones, it’s no better in the kitchen while making a meal, and I think it’s dull in a concert setting too. And he insists on sticking with The Architect, which for me falls flat as a live track even if it’s a good headphones track.
And the bass on Zoolookologie had a strange tempo, felt “off” to me. But I’m not the one to ask about musical arrangements and nuance.
Visually, I loved the graphical approach. As I’ve said before, it was going back to his roots in terms of those pop-art visuals. The fantasy fairy tales creatures dancing manically during Magnetic Fields 2 were a highlight, as were the Herbalizer robots. The visual design is a massive step up from the Electronica era, even if there’s no longer any “3D without the glasses” concept.
Where I think the show could have been better was the staging and scenography. The venue was the square outside the Royal Palace, a beautiful baroque building (think Place de la Concorde buildings) and this ran the length of the right hand side of the audience area, if looking at the stage. The left hand side was the edge of the park, full of mature trees. But there was zero attempt to integrate any of these edge features into the concert experience.
Worse, within this area were at least 10 food and drink concession stands. These could easily have been tucked away within the park, out of sight but still available. So while my view of the stage was uninterrupted, my wider field of vision was taken up by the lights of the fast food kiosks and huge signs saying DRINKS and FRITES.
One kiosk on my right was particularly annoying, an interior fluorescent strip light, illuminating the bored serving staff who were paying no attention to the show. Just in case that strip light wasn’t bright enough, the Desperado beer fridge added additional wattage.
What first appealed to me about Jean-Michel Jarre back in the late 1980s was his innovative approach of integrating architecture, environment and surroundings with the stage and the whole show. And while that approach was an essential element of the Cities In Concert shows, he still carried that attitude into events like Europe in Concert, China Forbidden City and Bratislava.
I know the Cities in Concert have been and gone, and it’s pointless pretending all his shows should follow the same formula. This summer tour is a “compressed” version of the JMJ experience, so when a venue like last night presents an opportunity to recreate just a little of that old architectural integration magic, he should grab it.
I don’t know how much control or influence he would have had over last nights staging, but simply creating a clear span area for the audience, from palace facade to the trees, and letting the lights and lasers spill out and strobe across the edges of the show area would have required minimal effort. No need to program new or bespoke light or projection animations, just give the venue room to breathe and place all the conventional, commercial festival stuff out of sight.
Obviously, this complaint is unique to the Brussels show, and I think other venues handled the staging approach better (e.g. Croatia).
Overall, it was a great event. Definitely glad I made the effort to see JMJ live one more time.
Loved his crinkly Stone Island jacket and chunky white trainers but still think those patterned trousers are terrible
Some Brussels photos:
