The Picture House, Edinburgh
3 stars
“Wow!” beams the chap from Colwyn Bay in the Gents during the second encore of Tangerine Dream’s Edinburgh Eye concert, where The Herald was also taking a breather. “Amazing!” He’d made the pilgrimage to bask in one of two UK dates by the German electronic group led by sole surviving original member Edgar Froese for forty years. Not that the Tangerine Dream sound has altered much over some hundred or so albums. Rather, this five-piece Dream led by Froese and fellow keyboardist Thorsten Quaeschning continues to mine a vein of portentous quasi-classicism and middle-brow prog which is in turns sentimental, baroque and bombastic.
Aided by Linda Spa’s airbrushed 1980s soprano sax and Bernhard Beibl’s histrionic guitar, much of the band’s propulsive force is provided by percussionist Iris Camaa, whose drum kit takes up even more room onstage than the banks of keyboards neatly arranged around each player. With two screens beaming out images of outer-space detritus, the visual focus is enhanced by the sort of laser show probably not seen since The Picture House’s guise as the Century 2000 night-club.
Froese himself sits impassive, his silver hair and red muffler contrasting with the golden-tressed glamour of the two female players. As he moves tastefully through his back pages of arid techno, Celtic-tinged slush and over-egged electronic sheen, you can hear where Simple Minds picked up their excessive moves from. After almost three hours, Froese picks up the microphone to tell us what a beautiful city Edinburgh is. They’re the first words that have been uttered on stage all night in a not unpleasant but oddly soulless exchange. As they say in Colwyn Bay, wow.
The Herald, November 4th 2008
ends
3 stars
“Wow!” beams the chap from Colwyn Bay in the Gents during the second encore of Tangerine Dream’s Edinburgh Eye concert, where The Herald was also taking a breather. “Amazing!” He’d made the pilgrimage to bask in one of two UK dates by the German electronic group led by sole surviving original member Edgar Froese for forty years. Not that the Tangerine Dream sound has altered much over some hundred or so albums. Rather, this five-piece Dream led by Froese and fellow keyboardist Thorsten Quaeschning continues to mine a vein of portentous quasi-classicism and middle-brow prog which is in turns sentimental, baroque and bombastic.
Aided by Linda Spa’s airbrushed 1980s soprano sax and Bernhard Beibl’s histrionic guitar, much of the band’s propulsive force is provided by percussionist Iris Camaa, whose drum kit takes up even more room onstage than the banks of keyboards neatly arranged around each player. With two screens beaming out images of outer-space detritus, the visual focus is enhanced by the sort of laser show probably not seen since The Picture House’s guise as the Century 2000 night-club.
Froese himself sits impassive, his silver hair and red muffler contrasting with the golden-tressed glamour of the two female players. As he moves tastefully through his back pages of arid techno, Celtic-tinged slush and over-egged electronic sheen, you can hear where Simple Minds picked up their excessive moves from. After almost three hours, Froese picks up the microphone to tell us what a beautiful city Edinburgh is. They’re the first words that have been uttered on stage all night in a not unpleasant but oddly soulless exchange. As they say in Colwyn Bay, wow.
The Herald, November 4th 2008
ends
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