I saw Jeremy last Saturday, at this interestingly-conceived but poorly-presented South Bank event. He's in the middle of yet more changes to the Life Plan, involving him moving first to Shepherds Bush and then to Rome for a month (or maybe forever). He told me that in the course of his latest packing, he'd stumbled across an old ticket stub for Tangerine Dream at the Brighton Dome. "'81 or '86?," I asked. The look on his face showed that he'd forgotten we saw them there twice. Him: "… Wasn't '86 at Croydon?" Me: "No, '82 was Croydon. It must have been half-term, because I remember my parents picking me up afterwards and getting home in time to watch the South Bank Show feature on the recording of Peter Gabriel's fourth album, including this new 'Fairlight' thing that sampled sounds and played them back musically — I wonder what happened to that." We have a lot of conversations like that, often brought to stultifying close by one of my no-pedantic-detail-overlooked, no-narrative-satisfaction-delivered recollections.
Anyway, I was right about Croydon, 31st October 1982. I remember toying with the idea of going to the London show a week later, 6th Nov — and when this album came out early in 1983, I wished I had. I bought it when I was living in Munich, at the same time as Audentity.
Our experience at Croydon in '82 was a far cry from the revelation of the Brighton Dome in '81. I remember enjoying it, but feeling frustrated that I never felt my pulse quickening or my adrenaline pumping. Logos backs me up (right again, shucks!): the interest is mostly melodic rather than rhythmic. It feels more tightly disciplined than a year before, and never finds the space to take off.
If you hunt around online, you can now find "official bootlegs" of the 1981 tours — the continental tour at the start of the year has shows from Aachen and Paris on eMusic, and the autumn UK tour (15 shows in 15 nights, punishing!) is represented by a Newcastle show. The latter was just a few days after our first TD experience at the Brighton Dome, though my 29-year memory thinks the set list we saw was closer to the continental shows. Yes, I'm just making mental notes to myself here: ignore me.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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