gig blog
Concert reports from Stuttgart and surroundings
The fact that Jean-Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk, the two most important representatives of electronic music, are playing at the same festival is already a real booking coup at this year's JazzOpen. For fans, the unique opportunity for a comparative consideration. Not for me though. After the Karlsruhe Palace Concert 2023, I could not imagine a further increase in the Kraftwerk experience and preferred to leave it out.
The Schlosshof is very well filled with 6,400 spectators, but not completely sold out. Around me I hear joyful conversation in French. Stuttgart's proximity to the French border should be the opportunity for some compatriots to attend one of the rather rare concerts of the French electronics icon. First impression when the almost 77-year-old - who brings a really long and impressive Vita - enters the stage: Presenter Stefanie Anhalt did not exaggerate in her introduction, Jean-Michel Jarre actually looks much younger. It will be exciting to see how his music has aged.
The stage structure is already brilliant, twelve high-resolution LED steles in loose arrangement use the depth of the stage and visually form the bridge between the huge rear wall projection and the two side LED walls. An armada of laser projectors and countless headlights give great things to expect.
After the opener "Magnetic Fields", Jarre makes the first elements of his most famous melody "Oxygene" sound with "Epica Oygene", and immediately nostalgic memories of the somewhat awkward futurism of the series "Moon Base Alpha" are set in, which was provided with this song as a soundtrack in the German version. But if you think you're getting a nostalgic retro show, you're fooled. In one of his announcements, Jean-Michel Jarre not for nothing bows to the German music avant-garde including the "Berlin Techno", he also proves that his sounds are absolutely contemporary. For example, the 2016 release of "Exit" is a driving techno track in which he has embedded a statement by Edward Snowdon on the subject of "privacy and public data".
Right from the start, he makes it clear that he sees great similarities in electronic music and jazz in attitude and structure. And to dispel all doubts about whether what is being offered may not come completely off the tape, he puts on glasses with a mini camera for a song, so that the audience gets a glimpse of his hands and the countless electronic devices that he operates live. Among them are also vintage devices such as a "Rehberg Synthi".
In general, the use of hidden built-in cameras is very sophisticated. Sometimes you can see his oversized eye on all monitors, sometimes his feet are shown, dancing in the same time with animated comic characters. The great battle of technology gets something very human, which is also underlined by his charming and credibly oriented speeches to the audience. Only a few songs with a slight tendency to the bombast are a bit too cheesy for me, but they also belong to the oeuvre of the master.
His explicit praise for the sound technology can only be underlined: The "d&b Soundscape" system, which the local matadors from Backnang have built here, is actually one of the reasons why this concert becomes a lasting experience. Incredibly transparent and spatial, impressively powerful, but never too loud, Jarre's multi-layered compositions are placed in the castle courtyard. I can remove the prophylactically placed hearing protection for the first time in a long time at a concert of this size.
At least equivalent to the musical performance is the optical sub-artment. The setting described above is not only technically sophisticated and allows all viewers - even those on the edge - an almost immersive experience, it is also played with extremely artistic visuals to match each song. (This was one of the criticisms of the Kraftwerk gig that I heard: If you didn't stand or sit in the middle of the audience area, you could only partially or not see the rear wall LED on which all the essential visuals were played)
Jean-Michel Jarre, who manages to gain a poetic view despite AI skepticism of artificial intelligence, proves this through aesthetic, partly dreamy-poetic images, which are mostly AI-generated and congenially underline the content of the respective songs. They are far from the ubiquitous "AI Slop", which insults all aesthetic perception and intelligence.
After a good 100 minutes (or were there more? Time flew by) Jean-Michel Jarre turns to the audience with a wink. They filmed him with mobile phones all evening, now he's turning the tables. With his phone he films the completely enthusiastic audience, which in turn gives him back his own light show with the mobile phone lights.
No question: this concert has set standards in many ways. The eternally young Jean-Michel Jarre has emphatically proven that he absolutely deserves his legendary status. And my concert number 1,479 will get an inclusion in my eternal best list.
Setlist
Magnetic Fields
Epica Oxygene
Oxymore
Sex in the Machine
Oxygen 2
Arpegiator
Zoolookology
Equinoxe 7
The Architect
Zero Gravity
Exit
Industrial Revolution
Robots Don't Cry
Herbalizer
Oxygene 19
Équinoxe 4
Brutalism
Oxygen 4
Epica
Stardust
Rendez-vous
Magnetic Fields 2
Source:
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Jarregirl YouTube
Concerts attended:
Théâtre Marigny, Paris - 2007
Symphony Hall, Birmingham - 2008
RAH, London - 2008
Wembley Arena, London - 2009
NIA, Birmingham - 2009
POP Bercy, Paris - 2010
NIA, Birmingham - 2010
O2 Arena, London - 2010
Zénith Aréna, Lille - 2010
Port Hercule, Monaco - 2011
TUI Arena, Hannover - 2011
Festival International de Carthage - 2013
Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham - 2016
