When Air released their 1998 debut Moon Safari, there was nothing else like it. The French duo – Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin – had conjured an electronic masterpiece full of refined retro-futuristic pop and gentle psychedelia that became essential listening across all sorts of disparate groups, from comedown ravers to the middle-class dinner party set via Radio 1 and film soundtracks. It was utterly of the moment, inspiring countless imitators. That it was all conducted with a chic Parisian insouciance only added to the allure.
But if the record was a unique achievement, it is similarly hard to think of anything quite like their spectacular recreation of the album on the UK debut of a belated 25th anniversary tour. Last night in the opulent setting of London’s magnificent Coliseum, Air brought to life their grand statement in thrilling, emotive, transformative fashion.
Ever the aesthetes, the staging was immaculate. In keeping with the album’s themes – nostalgia for the pair’s 70s childhood and the promised new space age that never materialised – Air, dressed all in white, performed from inside a white rectangular box, a sleek and sophisticated base from which tasteful lighting and otherworldly visuals could emerge. It often brought to mind Kraftwerk recreating 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The immersive setting enhanced the sense of wide-eyed wonder in the music. Air were joined by an impressively agile and powerful drummer and Moon Safari’s inventiveness came to the fore. Opener “La femme d’argent” began as a lounge track, unfurling leisurely above Godin’s typically precise yet loose bassline before Dunckel added layers of noise. By the end, it had become a swirling psychedelic onslaught.
The hits – a sumptuous “Sexy Boy” and giddy “Kelly Watch the Stars” – sounded invigorated. It was a reminder of how ahead of the curve Air were: at the time, vocoded vocals were still rare in popular music; Moon Safari pre-dated Cher’s “Believe” by nine months. That said, Godin used a vocoder to sing the luxurious ballad “You Make it Easy” (its original singer, Beth Hirsch, was absent), and it was the only moment that didn’t enhance the feeling of the record (the cut-up sampling of Hirsch’s voice for “All I Need” worked far better).
If past Air concerts were a bit too nonchalant for their own good, then last night a sense of occasion brought out, if not quite showmanship, a certain personality that hasn’t always been evident. Dunckel, stationed between two sets of keyboards, often faced the crowd and played both at the same time in an impressively offhand manner. For his part Godin strayed around the stage as he swapped guitars, all smiles and lost-in-the-moment grooves. When an excited audience member shouted “we love you!” during the twinkling intro to “New Star in the Sky”, it could have killed the moment stone dead. Standing at his keyboards, Godin smiled and raised a fist in salute. After album closer “Le voyage de Pénélope” – a wavey, frantic finale – the pair could barely contain their joy at the standing ovation.
After the success of Moon Safari, Air were so desperate not simply to remake it that, in recording the divisive 2001 follow-up 10,000Hz Legend, they locked all their previous equipment in a cupboard and threw away the key. A wisely chosen second set, then, plucked the highlights from the rest of their catalogue (notably nothing later than 2004). The melodious alt-pop songs of 2004’s Talkie Walkie – the wistful “Cherry Blossom Girl” and guitar-led “Surfing on a Rocket” – are some of their very best; from 10,000Hz Legend, the Krautrock-goes-prog “Don’t be Light” was exhilarating, as was the closing Kraftwerkian manifesto “Electronic Performers”, which ended with an onslaught of dark noise.
But it’s the Moon Safari set that will live long in the memory: an extraordinary performance of an extraordinary album.
Air perform Moon Safari at the Royal Albert Hall on 30-31 May. Then touring
