After 30 years of waiting I finally met Edgar and the rest of the band - enough said!

Intro

First off thanks off to my friend Gordon who drove the extremely ill feeling ‘me’ to the gig in absolutely vile driving conditions – I wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for him!

So. The gig. Well, after almost three decades, countless concerts and scores of fruitless attempts waiting around afterwards, 2008 was to be the year I finally meet the most influential person in my musical life so far – one ‘Edgar Froese’

I could end the review there a happy and contented man but I guess for posterity and for the TD fans that couldn’t make the gig I’d better relate the full story - here goes…

The Journey

Best laid plans and all that. I don’t know, TD do ‘one’ date in England this year, it’s announced months and months beforehand and thanks to the god I live under I happen to be struck very ill a few days before it – unbelievable. Up to that point, that’s only happened once before at the Sparks gig earlier this year.

As the date neared it was touch and go whether I’d be going at all but as luck would have it a good friend of mine offered to drive so we were set. Originally I had planned to meet up with the TD Fans Zone crew and do some anorak bantering for the afternoon but being ill I had to leave the departure as late as, so we missed the opportunity – maybe next time

We landed in good ol ‘Landan Taan’ just a few hours before doors open. The scene was like something out of ‘Bladerunner’; through the misty windows the dark streets were ablaze with neon signs and people dashing around to avoid the hammering rain, the only thing missing was the hover cars and the odd ‘ replicant’

Touchdown

As luck would have it my ‘gor blimey’, ‘knock it on the head’, ‘apples n pears’ friend was fluent with Kentish town and steered us to the venue with expert skill. As we sailed past the venue there was already legions of insane TD fans queuing round the block for the ‘who can get the wettest before the gig’ competition

Honestly, I thought I was bad, I must have spent enough time on TD related activities to study for several degrees and bought enough TD music since the early 80’s to buy a new Porsche (928 of course – in brown, with the optional ‘lake diving’ pack) but I’m sorry, perhaps I’m getting old – ‘I was ill’, But that’s plain mad! It was belting it down outside – really

Situated in a somewhat scary looking suburb, ‘The Forum’ seems to straddle a residential area and some kind of industrial park. “The venue has parking” Well if it does it must be for micro cars and below street level because we couldn’t find it anywhere. Giving up in desperation we dumped the car in a more or less guaranteed ‘you will get your car stolen tonight’ area and head off in the pouring rain in pursuit of something to eat

Choices, choices. Well we didn’t have any. For a mere 5 zillion pounds, your ‘pre TD gig meal’ could be something really special, ‘or’ like us if you are poor, your ‘pre TD gig meal’ could be something really really NOT special, so ‘un special’ in fact I wondered if the Kebabesque quality of the snack would render me back exactly where I had spent the last few days when I should be watching Edgar and the gang – hmmm

Anyone for a queue?

Refueled and nauseous we opened the door of the snackery to be greeted with ‘even heavier’ rain – thank you so much. By now the front of ‘The Forum’ was plain silly – no cover at all and a queue that had morphed into about ten shapes and no sign of any security staff at all

Not a problem I thought, just wave that TD Online club card and who’ll be laughing then eh? Not me as it turns out. Thirty minutes later, ‘still outside’ I felt my clothes were rapidly dissolving in the punishing downpour - if I had planned a night on a North Sea oil rig I might have dressed better for the occasion

I managed to shove my way through to the only weakness in the Forum’s invincibility shield; an open hatch at the front. Inside a few dour looking staff related that there was no sign of any security and unlikely to be any until 10 minutes before the doors open time (6pm) so I returned to my spot in the rain and continued to drip. A few fellow TDOC members were similarly perturbed at our non vip-like wetness

After what seemed like an eternity there was news of a door opening at the other end of the queue and someone shouting for TDOC members and the like to queue in a particular place. That place was of course impossible to get to as the entire queue was gated off and no one was budging – for anybody, TD fans are notoriously serious about queuing to get an advantage inside. ‘That place’ was subsequently changed to add some variety to the mix so we re-queued

To be honest, frustrating as it is, I think the rugby scrum mentality could easily be curbed by making it ‘seated only‘, to take the stress of queuing away. What would also help is either a merchandise stall with enough Limited edition wares to cope with demand and one with lots of staff and stall frontage. You can see fear in the eyes of the queuing masses; ‘I might not get that special item’ and my life will be over so I will queue here for twenty hours to make sure. Trouble is, every other TD fan thinks the same way.

Being old and broken, my back can’t take standing up for three hours hence I always make a keen hobble to any unreserved seating area. In fact my heart sinks when I see the word ‘unreserved’ as I know it means a stressed start to the gig trying to fight the masses to get one of the three rickety chairs upstairs behind a pillar that may be on offer. Ailments aside, yes I too can’t disagree that front of stage standing up is the best place to be for an energetic gig but surely front row seated for an electronic gig is just as good, you can relax and enjoy the gig from a privileged spot without someone’s elbow in your ear and your shins being gradually chipped away by an over eager drunken dancer

On your Marks

Finally after 612 hours of standing outside in the rain ‘duh management’ decided we were wet enough and chose to s l o w l y open the doors and let us card holders in – ooooh at least four whole minutes before the rest of the hordes. The gods were smiling and I managed to get to the merchandise stall in good time and relieve my wallet of lots of bits of coloured paper for a pile of TD goodies. Which was nice.

Seconds later I looked behind and about two hundred people were leering over my shoulder slavering like rabid music collector dogs, eyes out on stalks and out of breath from the run to the stall. I couldn’t believe the pushing; I had to ask to ‘get out’ of the queue! and it still fell on deaf ears, no one batted an eyelid, made eye contact or parted the waves for me – I had to elbow my way ‘out’ – that’s just silly.

It must be Ebay frenzy if you ask me. Even the stall seller looked at me as if I was mad when I asked for ‘one’ of the Limited Edition ‘Choice’ cupdiscs – he repeated back ‘only one?’, err yes. To be honest I’m not sure I made best use of my time at the stall. I’m pleased with my stash but with all the shoving behind and so much merchandise on sale it was difficult to see everything – things were spread right across the stall table meaning you couldn’t see everything – I’m really hoping there wasn’t a tour programme as I didn’t see or buy one. What could help in future would be to have it all up on the wall (it may have been) with a clear distinction between regular releases still available from the TD online shop and Limited Edition / more unusual items

‘Soaking’ up the atmosphere

I’d had my fill so we made a bid for the upstairs unreserved seating where we were lucky enough to find ourselves right by the balcony edge stage right – a good view.

I always go on about this in reviews but I think pre-show music is key to setting the right mood and in this case the choice was perfect, Roxy Music.

It was pretty much a ‘best of’ and with the exception of Stick together which I can’t stand their catalogue includes some of my all time favourite tracks. Melancholic, melodic, masterpieces.

That’s too many ‘m’s I know but it’s true, plus the fact that there’s a TD connection with their music being included on the Legend soundtrack. As a backdrop to this, on the wall either side of the stage were large video screens showing cool computer generated visuals

It took time to fill but by my reckoning by the time the gig was about to start the venue looked like a complete sell out which is always good for the overall atmosphere. There was no support act but as the TD set was ‘supposed’ to be three hours long that’s no surprise! 

Go!

As is tradition, the crowd went mad as the curtains opened to reveal the band shrouded in atmospheric lighting and smoke. As the years have ticked on there seems more and more people on stage each time I see TD live and the impact is of a much ‘bigger’ band nowadays. Perhaps that’s why the amazing visuals of the 70’s gigs tailed off as there was more ‘people’ to focus on; the current lineup (now minus Jerome) numbers five including Edgar

Music aside, one of the biggest changes for this gig however was the lasers – yes really – ‘lasers’!! Memory is fading already so I’m not sure if they started immediately with them, but my recollection is that lasers accompanied ‘most’ of the show and it was a sight to behold

I have read comments by others saying it was hard to see the band through the lasers but I guess to what degree depends on where you were sitting. Yes, we were blinded a bit but it still looked ace! like being stuck inside the movie ‘Tron’ for three hours.

TD were renowned for having amazing laser shows in the early days and I don’t know if TD have put them on to try and please the 70’s TD sentimentalists but either way it was impressive and Jean Michel Jarre aside I can’t remember seeing lasers at any other gig I’ve ever been to - cool

The Music

Lighting is one aspect but the reason we were all queuing round the block in the pouring rain was to listen to the music and see Edgar and co. in the flesh. It was going to be a ‘long’ set which was billed to take us on a journey through the long history of TD’s musical catalogue

Ok I’ll admit it, despite ‘knowing’ deep down that the exact recreation of Ricochet using original gear wasn’t going to happen, it ‘still’ crosses my mind before a gig like this that it could happen. Especially when it’s billed as a ‘special’ concert. You’d have thought that after seeing TD live on what must be at least ten occasions by now I should know better!

I had also expected eerie sounds from the Mellotron to start the gig and continue on chronologically through the decades with newer and newer sounding material but if my memory serves correctly the tracks weren’t chronological at all

There was a time when I would have known every note, every nuance and deviation from the hallowed originals but with new material arriving from the TD production line on what seems like an hourly basis I simply haven’t been able to keep up with them all in recent years (though I am trying!) so the opening tracks were new to me

I’m sure the TD Barmy army, TD tree and the hordes of other TD-O’holics out there will be able to provide an exact set list so I won’t even attempt it! It looked like it was being filmed too so if a DVD materializes we’ll know for sure then anyway.

Suffice to say that all the music was good but for me there were several points which gave me goosebumps like the first time I saw them live back in 1986. Hearing ‘Going west’ was one such moment; it was so good it made me quite emotional which is something only the best music can do to you. This was the TD I grew up with and love so much – pure heart wrenching melody with the power of bubbling rhythmic and dark atmospheric Synths intertwining through the sound waves – truly immense and worthy of the ticket price for that track alone

The second time I got that “Oh my god are my ears deceiving me” moment was when  I heard the rich breathy chords of “Loved by the sun” from Legend starting to fade in, truly wonderful. Unlike ‘Going west’ which I felt was kept pretty much in its original form with minor tweaking (which suited me fine), “Loved by the sun” was different in the fact that Jon Andersons vocals were replaced by Linda Spa’s sax solo. Give me the original any day, no contest but despite my initial reaction to it being a ‘Kenny G’ moment, it did work quite well and the whole piece was still very emotional

The 80’s revival continued with a brief rendition of “Streethawk” which brought a wide grin to my face – never expected that. I wish the legal eagles would sort out their issues so the original soundtrack to the series could be released. I remember watching it in the 80’s and recording the programs and editing out the speech to end up with a load of short edits and snippets of music in awful quality (the things you do as a TD obsessive…), but there was some great unreleased music on there. I must try and dig that tape out… 

Whereas classics like Ricochet, Phaedra and Rubycon stand out for me as the pinnacle of their experimental phase, I guess these tracks all hail from what I would class as TD’s most emotional phase, and this gig could only really have been improved by a few more gems from that era, ‘Church Theme’ from Wavelength or ‘Charly the Kid’ from Firestarter for instance. I won’t get into the usual discussions here about the current output versus the “good old days” but when I listen to tracks like these I do desperately miss that style

Other highlights were re-workings of old classics, tracks from Hyperborea and possibly the first public outing of the new version of Tangram; ‘Tangram 2008’, both of which were excellent and similar in concept to the reworking of Phaedra which was done a few years back. It should be made clear for the uninitiated; yes they are ‘based’ around the original music but these are heavily reworked pieces using I would imagine a variety of ‘Virtual analogue’ synthesizers (evidenced by the screens on show at recent gigs!) and sound samples from TD’s sound library and not a mile high stack of modular Synths.

Regardless on your view of that, it goes to show that TD continue to embrace new technology and move with the times. Kraftwerk, also hailed as electronic music pioneers (and a personal favourite of mine) have done the same, their equally vast hardware arsenal compressed into a fraction of the size

I think us long standing TD fans should take this on board when each time a TD gig is announced because I’m sure our eyes read one thing and our mind tells us something different! It’s a vintage gig! It’s a vintage gig!, NO calm down it’s a 2008 gig with a mixture of old and new material performed on 2008 gear. I think the only electronic artist / group who’s done a ‘real’ vintage gig recently is Jean Michel Jarre; must have cost him a fortune and been very scary for him! I wonder if his just announced 2009 tour will be all analogue?

Having been to most if not all the UK TD gigs since the late 80’s I have witnessed a pattern emerging. This gig put the final pieces together for me and I now feel I have an insight into the direction Tangerine Dream are currently going in

What I believe we now have, is a strand creating new material which certainly in the live environment but possibly studio as well pretty much always includes; Synths (real and virtual) plus electronic enhancements, guitars, real percussion courtesy of Iris and sometimes sax played by Linda. The heavy focus on electronic gear days seem largely over or certainly for this incarnation of Tangerine Dream (I guess TD is like Doctor Who – it keeps reforming as something different!)

I know Edgar was never far away from his beloved axe, especially in the early days (nor should he be as it’s integral to the TD sound) but I get the feeling that acoustic instruments are playing a much larger role than before when we had less people on stage and a huge stack of Synths dominating

Running parallel to this I believe, is a strand which ’possibly’ started by Jerome and the Dream Mixes series, is focusing on reworking old material. This could be to keep the fans that harp on about ‘the old days’ happy (unlikely as I think Edgar has a clear vision and goes for it). It could be spontaneously triggered when trawling through the no doubt ‘vast’ TD sound library. It may be for nostalgia or even plain and simple for the fun of it! Either way I can imagine with such an epic back catalogue to play with, the possibilities are endless and I would expect many more reworks in the pipeline

Additionally, I suppose there is always room for one off projects that grab Edgar’s artistic imagination like Purgatorio for instance

Returning to the gig itself, there was a mixture of new material woven in between those tracks but as I suspect they were from very new albums I can’t confirm what they were! As the gig drew to a close we were again treated too more reworkings of older material

As I have said on many occasions,’ Love on a real train’  is one of my favourite pieces of music so I was more than happy when ‘those notes’ started looping as the 2008 version was unveiled before us. Edgar gave the thumbs up as it started – maybe as an acknowledgement that it was probably going to go down well!

I’ve probably heard the original a thousand times by now so I know it back to front. I have done numerous versions of it myself and studied its structure in detail and although to the casual listener it may sound very simple, it is in fact a masterclass in making the complex sound that way. I’m also well versed with Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich which was an influence on the piece so I feel well qualified to discuss the merits of this version

I enjoyed it. As it’s a personal favourite I would be hard pressed not to, however as ever you simply ‘cannot beat the original’ – everything about it blows me away, the atmosphere, the melody and the hypnotic repetition of notes – it’s as good as it gets for me. It was nice to hear and like the other live versions of it I have heard TD do over the years, any new version is worth a listen but I’m sure if Franke, Froese and Schmoelling were locked in a room together and ‘forced’ to come up with another version it would be something quite different to the version we heard tonight

I lost count of the encores but the full house kept applauding and TD kept coming back! The icing on the cake was the finale, “Cloudburst Flight” complete with Edgar (sat down) strumming on his guitar – it was magical to see him play those chords, you could almost taste the 70’s. The fast guitar piece was played not by Edgar but by Bernard Beibl who did a pretty good job of tackling a complex piece and was applauded by Edgar afterwards. What an ending to a long but rewarding gig! The venue seemed totally packed, the lasers were fantastic and from where we were sitting the acoustics weren’t bad either. How could the night get any better? Like this…

The meet and greet

The lights went up and the masses spread out like lemmings escaping out of every exit. As I started to get moved along by the crowd I started to wonder where the ‘after show party’ was. Nothing had been mentioned so before being escorted out of the exits I thought I’d better ask one of the security guys where the exits led, the street? Yes he answered!

I explained about the after show party, he asked if I had a TDOC card and was pointed down towards another exit. All I can say is that if I hadn’t have asked I would be on the street in a large crowd and there was a strict no re-admittance policy! So I would have missed the after show party completely – I can’t think of a worse scenario. Perhaps next time the venue management should make an announcement or something, I hope no one else fell for that one

So there we were. In the bar, waiting for Tangerine Dream – my heart was in my mouth – this was the big moment, I still felt rubbish but this woke me up big time! No sooner had we landed and who should walk past in a hurry but Bianca Acquaye! I said hello but she had to get back stage apparently and that was the last I saw of her. Still good. We’re getting close!

This was great, ten minutes later and there was less than a handful of people in the room – amazing I can talk to Edgar all night! How we will laugh… I should have guessed. I don’t know how they did it and I’m not convinced that ‘that’ many people had bought TDOC cards but 20 minutes or so later and the bar was packed – typical! A seething mass of frenzied drooling TD’ers, pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of the living deity that is one ‘Edgar Froese’

On the upside, whilst waiting around I spotted Chris Newman, Mr. TDFZ himself! which was great, it was really nice to finally meet and thank the man who has been playing my music on his radio station for some time now. I think Chris’s growing empire of is pretty unique and with TD fans behind it, it should go from strength to strength. I was supposed to be meeting Ulrich Schnauss for a chat but somehow we missed each other - doh

First TD sighting in the wild was Thorsten Quaeschning who appeared very conveniently from a door almost right next to me. Poor chap looked like a rabbit in the headlights! Must have been quite a daunting sight for him to walk into. He assured us that the rest of the band were imminent and I managed to get a quick photo with him then he disappeared. Shortly after, the crowd started mumbling that Edgar was on his way and the crowd lunged forward until a cheer went up as Edgar (complete with legendary hat) and Linda Spa entered the room

Never having been to such a thing before I didn’t know the drill. As it turned out, the first half an hour was more like an official press conference. Despite being almost first in the room I was about ten or more people away from the action and it was a bit of a job to get a good view.

One by one people shouted out questions to Edgar and the room fell quiet as he relayed his wise words. Someone asked; “How is the book going?” Which Edgar amusingly retorted, “I was talking to the book just the other day”. Edgar disputed the fact that he was a genius when someone shouted out some compliments and was quite humble about his work. His whole persona was quite matter of fact but evidence of him being a ‘thinker’ was clear too buy the way he generally paused and gave a considered answer rather than snappy one liners

The crown ooed and ahhd whilst Edgar delivered his pearls of wisdom until he finally announced after there were no more questions, that he would sign things if we wanted him to. That’s when the rugby scrum began in earnest. If you thought the merchandise stall was bad you should have been here! I’ll be honest, after almost 30 years of waiting I was as desperate as the next man not to miss my golden opportunity but it was hard work getting close to Edgar.

I looked around and noticed that Iris wasn’t far away so made a quick move in her direction first – bingo! Managed to have a quick chat and a photo, she was lovely! Really smiley, friendly and bubbling with energy. I asked her if she was worn out after that three hour drum-fest, but she said no she was fine!

Back to the main mission. Starting to worry that Edgar was going to do a runner so stood my ground and finally, at long last…….result! I spoke to Edgar. I had thought long and hard about what to bring for him to sign; a really rare TD record? Hmmm might get damaged, poster? Bit awkward, ticket? Bit small. In the end I decided I wanted him to sign something which had real personal meaning to me so I chose the ‘first’ TD promotional leaflet I got back from TADREAM in the early 80’s when I wrote to them.

It’s a nice 2 page fold out colour leaflet with all the album covers to date (not many at that point! would need an extra 100 pages now!). I explained what it was to Edgar but he didn’t react, just signed it for me. I then opened my jacket to reveal my T-shirt – a self made “The Ones” T-shirt to be exact and asked Edgar if he recognized it, he looked at it in an ”oh no” kind of way, not sure what to make of that!

I then tried in a jibbering way, to explain what TD meant to me and how much they have influenced me whilst presenting him with a CD of my own unreleased music I had put together for him. He said thanks and put it into his pocket – I’m hoping I might get an email from him one day to see what he thought of it but nothing yet!

Wanting to extend my time with Edgar I asked him if it was true he was a fan of Steve Reich, to which he replied yes. This led onto an interesting discussion about  Love on a Real train which was fascinating, especially being one of my favourite TD tracks – which I forgot to tell him! It’s amazing what you forget to say.

I didn’t really want to leave but I got a photo with him and let others get through. Wow, mission accomplished, I still can’t really believe it’s happened! I wished I had said things differently, been funnier, found Edgar’s favourite topic to discuss! but such is your 5 minutes of fame, it is what it is

I remained in earshot for a while to hear what was being said and stared a bit like a star struck teenager before moving away to find Linda Spa standing up against a wall in the corner! She looked lovely and happily signed my leaflet and posed for the obligatory photo. I was nervous of course but she was also quite shy in comparison to Iris and Edgar. Although I saw Bernhard Beibl at some point while we were there, I somehow didn’t manage to getting his autograph

We had a long drive ahead so although my mind wanted to stay all night, the rest of me was fading fast so with a last look around the room we headed off into the rainy streets of Kentish town and started our long trek home

Review copyright Mat McKenzie www.hypnoticbeats.co.uk