Category: Concerts

Last May 30, in Zurich‘s Hallenstadion (Switzerland), the first leg of Jean Michel Jarre‘s current tour, “In>Doors Tour”, ended for good, with a total of 18 concerts performed in 12 european countries.

The tracklist remained the same that the first concert in Debrecen, Hungary, only changing the order of the tracks and adding two new encores (Industrial Revolution 2 and Oxygene 4) at the end of the shows.

With the only exception of the danish concerts in Aarhus and Herning (where the ticket sales were rather low), and despite of the lack of promotion and the high cost of tickets, the feedback of the public was great, almost reaching sold out on every venue that Jarre and his team visited during the tour.

The plans for the future are to restart the tour again in September but, by now, the new dates are a total mistery.

The new Jean Michel Jarre‘s tour, “In>Doors World Tour”, started for good in Fonix Csarnok hall at Debrecen, Hungary last monday May 4, 2009.

Joining Jarre on stage were Francis Rimbert at keyboards, Dominique Perrier with his stunning solos and Claude Samard, at keyboards and percussions and acting as musical director of the show aswell.

The tracklist was a real mixture of well known tracks and songs not played live for almost twenty years, like Calypso 3 or Equinoxe 5. The music was mainly played absolutely live and respecting the original sound of the tracks. There were not new tracks, tough Jarre said in various interviews that he aimed to include new compositions  in the tracklist.

Visually the show had lots of lasers and lighting effects reminding the China concerts in 1981 and the Oxygene Tour in 1997, but there were not HD image projection as said in the press note made to promote the tour.

The tracklist played in the inaugural concert of the tour was:

– Industrial Revolution 2

– Magnetic Fields 1

– Equinoxe 7

– Oxygene 2

– Rendez Vous 3

– Rendez Vous 2

– Souvenir of China

– Magnetic Fields 2

– Oxygene 5

– Variation 3

– Equinoxe 4

– Equinoxe 5

– Chronologie 6

– Chronologie 2

– Oxygene 4

– Calypso 3

– Oxygene 12

Things are going bad for the long awaited concert by Jean Michel Jarre and Brian May for the inauguration of the GTC, in Roque de los Muchachos, scheluded for this very summer.

Few days ago, the press said that the global crisis could concern the accomplishment of the event, tough Dr. Garik Israelian told about this issue to Fairlight Jarre last December.

In other article, the press said that canarian government couldn´t cope alone with the budget of the concert (4 millions €) without the collaboration of private enterprises.

In the other hand, yesterday Fairlight Jarre received an email from Dr. Garik Israelian tellling us, with sadness, that “we have no news yet. Finding out money for this event is not an easy task. And is even more difficult for me, because I’m not into the money’s world. This is a different world where people don’t make things because they enjoy making things happen, but in this world people make things only for money. With regard to the participation of Phil Collins and Brian May in the concert, who cares, if every time there are fewer and fewer possibilities that concert could be staged”.

We hope that all the troubles can be solved for good. Thank you again to Dr. Garik Israelian for keeping us updated with the very last news about this event.

Last January 15, in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the Internacional Year of Astronomy was inaugurated by the Director General of UNESCO Mr. M. Koichiro Matsuura who stated in his speech that “Jean Michel Jarre has accepted to be the Ambassador for this International Year of Astronomy and he is going to perform an outdoor concert in Canary Islands next July as part of the events of this Internacional Year of Astronomy”.

This announcement made by the Director General of UNESCO was in total contradiction with what Dr. Garik Israelian said us some weeks ago, so Fairlight Jarre decided to contact again with Dr. Israelian yesterday to know the true about the real progress of the event. So, Garik said us that “I were with Jean Michel in Paris during the inauguration. We are almost everyday in contact with Brian (May) too. There are MANY supporters of this event. Jarre is also doing as much as he can for this event, but we all know that it’s no easy. Next week we’ve got series of meetings in Madrid with politicians, Ministers and important and powerful enterprises. We have found also an astronomer, friend of mine, who is working in the Parlament; is a good guy and he is going to help us very much. Like you see, here we are fighting for the concert. We are very happy with the format of the concert and with more things about the event. We’ll see what happens, but I’m still optimistic”.

Also today the canarian press has stated that the british singer and drummer Phil Collins could join Jean Michel Jarre and Brian May on stage at the “Concert of the Stars” (working title for the event) next July during the inauguration of the GTC as one of the main events of the International Year of Astronomy. This is what Francisco Sánchez, Director of the Institute of Astrophisics of Canary Islands, said to Cadena SER radio station yesterday. 

So, the things remains more or less the same that in December, and, spite of the words of the Director General of UNESCO and spite of the informations in canary press, we have to still be very cautious about this event. They continue in the quest to obtain money (public or private) for the event, and today we still don’t know if this concert will go ahead or not. Thank you very much to Dr. Garik Israelian for his kindness and infinite patience. We will keeping you informed.