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Review: Tangerine Dream, Trinity Centre
By coincidence – or synchronicity, if you’re cosmically inclined – two late sixties/early seventies acts with no original members are playing Bristol within days of one another. Both are led by chaps who were personally anointed by their late predecessors. Some people get sniffy about these things, especially if they suspect filthy lucre is the motivating factor. After all, Gene Simmons famously mused about franchising Kiss so he could have multiple versions playing simultaneously on different continents while he stayed home to count the money. But we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this torch-passing, not least because of the unwelcome intervention of The Reaper. Some acts do it brilliantly. Gong, who play the Thekla next week, successfully reinvented themselves while remaining true to the spirit of the original band. Others, like The Enid, are struggling.
So where do electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream fit in? They’ve always had the advantage of being relatively anonymous, especially as they originally chose to perform in semi-darkness. Last time they played Bristol, 25 years ago at the Hall Formerly Known as Colston, it was a relatively sedate, seated affair. Tonight, at a packed Trinity, the atmosphere is very different. Before the show, the giant projection screen shows New Agey scenes of waves and lashing rain, as if to remind us of the weather outside earlier in the day. Then, with commendable German efficiency, Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick take to the stage at 8:30pm and play for precisely two-and-a-half hours, as advertised, accompanied by as much of their state-of-the-art light show as they can squeeze into the venue.
The show opens with the familiar, pulsating, sequencer-driven sounds of Stratosfear, setting the scene for what could easily become a nostalgic romp through the extensive catalogue. But it quickly becomes clear that this Tangerine Dream are not afraid to get under the bonnet for some serious tinkering. The ominous Betrayal, known to film buffs as the main theme from William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, is reinvigorated with a gut-punching rhythm while Hoshiko Yamane plays the melody line on violin. It’s absolutely magnificent. If only they could be persuaded to perform the full score alongside a screening of the film.
is needed now More than ever
The lazy option here would have been to update the Tangerine Dream sound by slapping a generic, lowest-common-denominator thunk-thunk-thunk, thunka-thunka-thunka dance beat on top of everything, in the style of those ghastly lumpen remixes that bands used to endorse in the forlorn hope of sounding more ‘relevant’. But while the Quaeschning-led incarnation is not afraid to amp up the propulsiveness of the sound, TD do so in a more subtle and imaginative fashion, being less concerned with the dopamine rush of instant musical gratification than with taking the audience on picaresque excursions in which the journey is more important than the destination. As a result, while this lengthy standing show may be hard on the knees of more mature fans, it permits others to do something previously unthinkable at a Tangerine Dream gig – dance.
The show’s many highlights include the gorgeous Love on a Real Train (from the soundtrack of the 1983 Tom Cruise teen comedy Risky Business) and a revamped extract from set one of Tangram. New album Raum is well-represented by the lovely, aptly titled Continuum, which provides a bridge between old and new TD, and two tracks accompanied by their lo-fi super 8 videos. The one from the title composition puts the spaghetti cable forest of Edgar Froese’s original 1970s Tangerine Dream set-up alongside the sleek current computer-based gear, focussing on Yamane’s (often heavily treated) violin. You’re Always On Time follows the trio as they make field recordings.
It climaxes with an appropriately show-stopping reinvention of the great Phaedra, fired up with kinetic energy as it builds to an explosion of light and sound. But, of course, the show doesn’t end there and, in a nod to band history, the trio return to perform a lengthy improvisation. In some ways this robs the show of momentum, but it also underlines their refusal to play safe. If they’re a little over-eager to emphasise their commitment to Froese’s original vision, presumably to assuage trolls and sceptics, this Tangerine Dream proved themselves to be perfectly well equipped to forge their own future.
Main pic: Melanie Reinisch
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: March 2022
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