Tangerine Dream Live at the Tempodrome Berlin 2006 (DVD) DVD / 30 tracks / 3hrs+

Of prime importance of course is the picture and sound quality and in those departments there are few complaints. The picture is generally very good and is presented in a full 16:9 aspect ratio (ie no black bars on your widescreen displays!). There is some occasional digital blocking, especially on close-up, but this may be exacerbated by the fact I'm watching it on a projector. Audio-wise there's Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 on offer. An annoying little glitch is that no matter what you select on the audio menu it seems to default to 2.0. However a quick prod on the audio button at the start of the concert will reveal the full surround experience. Also included on the DVD is a "rehearsal" feature showing some concert "prep" footage.

So to the show. There's some brief pre concert atmospherics, together with a quick pan shot of the front row doubtless guaranteeing a few dozen sales for sure. Then Edgar, looking every one of his 60+ years, walks on stage dressed all in black and starts to play the mouth organ. This short interlude is a clever contrast to the scene which greets you after the curtain (literally) drops to reveal the full stage setup. Taking pride of place in front of 3 plasma screens are Edgar himself, Jerome Froese and a relative newcomer Thorsten Quaesching. On percussion duties is Iris Camaa, joined on the back row by Linda Spa with a variety of nozzles (and a keyboard) at her disposal. And completing the line-up we have Gerald Gradwohl and Bernhard Beibl on guitars. Life was so much simpler in this respect with Franke/Froese/Baumann or Franke/Froese/Schmoelling!

There are visual treats aplenty (over and above the delights of the aforementioned Iris and Linda) including 3 large projection screens which display a continous collage of visuals. It must be said some of the visuals fit the music perfectly, others are a little strange however and someone seems to have a particular penchant for articulated lorries which is, basically, weird!

The plasma screens themselves display the variety of PC interfaces to the plethora of keyboards at their disposal. Most notable is Edgar's Moog modular interface, I suspect an Arturia emulation but I'm not 100% sure. Also noticeable is the way the changing screen displays betray the video editing process as a closeup of Edgar's "screen moog" changes in the next wider shot to something completely different. You don't of course get these problems with physical modulars. :-)

So, on with the music folks. And surely no-one can complain about the quantity on offer here. There are a gargantuan 30 (yes 30!) tracks presented including no less than 5 encores!

Full track listing is as follows: 1 Astrophel And Stella / 2 Ca Va, Ca Marche, Ca Ira Encore / 3 Poland / 4 Flashpoint / 5 Encore / 6 Scuba Scuba / 7 Catwalk / 8 Love On A Real Train / 9 No Man's Land / 10 Tangram Part 1 / 11 Oriental Haze / 12 Charly The Kid / 13 The Journey / 14 Warsaw In The Sun / 15 The Midnight Trail / 16 Girl On The Stairs / 17 Atlas Eyes / 18 Melrose / 19 Phaedra Of Nottingham / 20 Stratosfear 95 / 21 Mothers Of Rain / 22 Song Of The Whale Part 1 / 23 Blue Bridge / 24 Tharsis Maneuver / 25 La Libération

Encores: 1 Loved By The Sun / 2 Streethawk / 3 Little Blond In The Park Of Attractions / 4 Mobocaster / 5 House Of The Rising Sun

It's great to see such a healthy representation of tracks from (what I consider) their "classic" period. Rather irksome however is that some of the tracks aren't what they seem. Track 5 'Encore' for example is actually *that* classic melodic section from 'Force Majeure'. No complaints there of course, but I was especially drawn to track 12 'Charly the Kid' only to hear something that, erm, wasn't 'Charly the Kid'! Haven't felt so gutted since they left the 'Walking in the Air' theme off 'The Keep'!

At a superficial level it's easy to see people enjoying this DVD. There's a good smattering of tracks both old and more recent. There's lots of synth gear on show. The performance is professional and clearly a lot of organisation and effort has gone into staging it. It works best on tracks like 'Stratosfear 95' which sounds so different to the original, and you can see and understand why such a group of musicians would want to take the music in that direction.

But it's on the likes of the very next track, 'Mothers of Rain', where things don't work as well. This TD lineup look largely like passengers, detached from the music which pounds on regardless, adding a bit of fine detail here and there which is mostly not needed or unheard. For me, this is far more distracting than "fingers on keys" not matching the music which may simply be because of the video editing process. And the result can be a very hollow and superficial experience.

All is not lost though, I think I've worked out what the "lorry thing" is all about. It has a 40 on the front of it hence I can only assume it's portraying TD as a 40 year "juggernaut". I can see the metaphor. Try to stand in the way of where TD want to go and you'll be mown down. I was probably "road kill" back in about '86. (GG)

Second Opinion...

I didn't think this would be my cup of tea. Like Graham, give me the Baumann and Schmoelling line ups rather than anything that came since. BUT I actually found this DVD tremendously satisfying. I loved Edgar's harmonica intro but after that thought the non Froese musicians did a good and entertaining job as the solos were passed between them. The versions of the old classics I mainly enjoyed and thought the whole thing was put together in a very professional way. I only watched it on a very 'ordinary' television and didn't notice any digital blocking. I have also heard some people say that they were miming but I couldn't see any evidence for this. There was the occasional bit where the music and pictures were a little out of time with one another but I think that is all it was. It must be difficult to do a high quality audio recording then marry it perfectly to multi camera images. I'm not saying there weren't some prerecorded parts, I will leave that to musicians to decide but there was certainly enough going on that looked live to me.