Tangerine Dream, Coventry Cathedral - March 2022

 

Tangerine Dream, Coventry Cathedral - March 2022

by Pete Clemons

Given that their latest album, Raum, recently topped the dance charts kind of shows where Tangerine Dream are at today. And Raum is indeed an upbeat album. But what makes the album special is that it also contains arrangements written by their late band leader and visionary Edgar Froese.

And the theme of future and past set the scene for the bands current tour that included a visit to Coventry Cathedral. This coming just over 45 years since they last appeared at the cathedral in 1975. Of course that last visit was by the bands classic line up of Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann and Chris Franke. The Tangerine Dream appearing today are Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick.

In the same vein Tangerine Dream have, for this tour, reintroduced the sequencer sound that revolutionised the bands sound of the 1970s.

The unmistakeable sounds of Stratosphere opened the proceeding. Stratosphere was a landmark album in as much that it saw the band take a new musical direction. More melodic and moving away from the 'Berlin School' style.

This was followed by a piece from the album The Sorcerer. The thing for me with Tangerine Dream is I recognise the music without necessarily knowing its title. I have since found out it was titled Betrayal and it was the main theme of the soundtrack. As you would expect recognisable pieces from the latest album Raum were also performed.

The theme of the evening was clearly evident as other highlights included Ricochet widely, but wrongly, thought to have been performed at the last Coventry Cathedral visit and an upbeat version of Phaedra. Phaedra of course was one of the first albums to use sequencer.

Guest guitarist Steve Rothery added a whole new dynamic to what was a quite spectacular finale. He joined the fray for the last two pieces of the main set and his deftness and subtlety on guitars was sublime. Steve also appeared on the encore. And those three pieces totalled well over an hour's work for him.

It was promised that towards the end of every concert a 30+ minute real time composition/improvisation was to be performed - turning every concert on this tour into a unique experience. And for this gig it was the encore piece which was beyond any pre conceived expectations. It was simply mesmerising.

The sound within the cathedral was cavernous and reverberated around the hall. The light show and visuals were spectacular. It was akin to being part of the four ends of mass. And that being the adoration of Tangerine Dream. Especially the more 'traditional' pieces which were exquisite.

For this concert Tangerine Dream were simply attempting to re-stage rather than recreate. Forty five years ago we were given, what I assumed, were improvised pieces of music. This evening it was 15 plus clearly rehearsed pieces. Apart from one, the encore. The 2022 version of the band certainly made the night their own.

Similar to the classic line up of 1975 today's version of Tangerine Dream have certainly cemented their place in folklore with this performance. And this tour will have done no harm in introducing, maybe, lapsed devotees of electronica to the sounds of today's Tangerine Dream as well as reminding listeners of the band just how good that classic era music was.