Zurich Climax

Jarre did it (again)! After eleven years of absence from Swiss concert venues, Jean Michel hit the Zurich "Hallenstadion" on May 3rd to perform his last show of the "Oxygène" Tour 2008. Unlike other venues, he didn't start the set with him sitting in that "Men In Black" style eggchair, but ran from across the audience to the stage where he performed, together with Claude Samard ("he is the youngest and member"), Dominique Perrier and Francis Rimbert, an enthusiastic set of virtually faultless live music.

"Zurich will be special" Claude told me in a pre-concert mail, "because Jean Michel wants the concert to be perfect, as it is the closing of the 'Oxygène 2008' tour. Plus there will be some potential sponsors in the audience, too". Not only was it the last concert, but also the one with the biggest audience during the tour: an estimated 3000 people were enjoying Jarre's sound. Compared to an average 1500 for all other venues, quite a leap...

The concert itself was, for my taste, sometimes a bit too loud, but rarely really hurting my ears. Sometimes, those very low frequency sounds could be felt, as if there was some body shakers mounted unterneath our seats. All in all, it was more than impressive and pleased me very much as a Jarre fan for more than 25 years. The Concert closed with him playing an encore of 'Oxygène IV', the "track we went big with" and the promise to "come back very, very soon, but this time outside".

Let's just not hope he will wait another 11 years, for he will be 70 years old then. But as I assume, even in that age, Jean Michel is going to hit the crowds, release records and stay the main topic in our forum at www.zoolook.nl