Tuesday, 2 September 2008
The London "Kid"
In 1988, when I was a "kid" of just six years old, my father told me he was taking me to see a London concert by someone called Jean-Michel Jarre called "Destination Docklands". I said to him in Japanese "But Daddy, I can't understand much English yet". He grinned at me and replied "You won't need to". I was puzzled.
It was a free concert of synthesizer music only, complete with fireworks.
I was thrilled. That is, till the evening of the concert. It was late October, and it was absolutely bucketing down with freezing rain.
We arrived early, and I will never forget it. Dad hugged me close to keep me warm under the umbrella. We were quite near the floating stage (which was on the old Victoria Dock). There searchlights illluminating the cloudbase, which was quite low that night.
Halfway through, Hank Marvin appeared and did this numberwith Jean-Michel( I had never heard of either musician).
To this day, this tune is quite the best I have ever heard . Chum. (Korean for "period")
Note how a lot of the musicians are smiling.
Look out for the kids in lifejackets, and especially the little blonde girl, who looks to her right and smiles to her companion. Seems to me she liked the tune also.
Look out for the little colored girl whose head gets framed with the firework behind her.
Look out for Nigel Mansell on drums and Beethoven on keyboards.
But most of all, listen to the melody. It is quite addictive.
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1 comment:
FASCINATING!!! I can hear what seems to me a combination of Hawaiian Island music, surf music, and maybe a third sound that combines it all. Hard to explain. I also like whoever the drummer is. If I could hear it, I liked it. Oddly though, I found the fireworks a little distracting to the music. The fireworks clashed with the music at times to my ears. Still, this is one of the most fascinating pieces of music I have heard in awhile that appeals to me. ;-) I had to listen twice before commenting. Now, I will go back to read your blogpost. I first read it a couple of days ago and have forgotten most of what you said. I did not want your thoughts to interfere with my thoughts before I expressed my own opinion. ha ha ha I wanted to avoid any possible clash of thoughts.
This was worth waiting until the weekend to listen to. And to think, this thing is live, not a recording studio version! Amazing!!! Off to your thoughts now. Thank you very much for posting this. You just expanded my Musical Horizon, as a friend of mine likes to say, laughingly.
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