Jean-Michel Jarre in Helsinki pt. 2

I had been eyeing the Jean-Michel Jarre 15.6.2025 concert for months, but only bought the ticket at the last moment. I wasn't too attracted by the Helsinki City Festival setting, but the weather seemed fine and I became anxious about missing a Jarre show inside walking distance.

The festival setting was a little dubious. Expensive foods, expensive drinks. People having difficulties walking the stairs, people avoiding the beer because it means having to go to the toilet 15 minutes later. A random audience member with a clandestine air showed me a Phaedra 50th anniversary reissue he had scored. Another was seen becoming teary-eyed hearing the first notes of a mangled Oxygene. Demosceners and hangarounds were in attendance, you know who you are.

T-shirts and merchandise had run out by the time I had arrived, so no Jarre cap for me, sniff.

I did blog about the 2016 indoor show, and although my notes are rather sparse, I can try to invite some comparisons.

Around 2016 Jarre had a lot of new material, including the collaborative Electronica albums. The Snowden-featuring Exit had even made the news. There had been another new Oxygene. So, all seemed rather good for Jarre back then, and it was reflected in the energetic show.

Since then, Jarre has released Equinoxe Infinity, a couple of soundtrack albums and Oxymore, so there's no lack of material to choose from.

I noted in the 2016 indoor concert how the classic songs had received an amped-up and abbreviated treatment. This was just as true now. But the difference here is that this time I wasn't so excited about the material from that era (The Architect, Zero Gravity, Exit) and was on occasions a little puzzled with the more recent tracks (Oxymore).  

It's likely a difficult balance, play the older songs and be accused of becoming a nostalgia act, play a lot of new material and lose the "Jarre signature sound". Jarre has lately associated himself with the EDM tag, which might be a wise move, but it may also have meant skewing the material in a particular direction.

He played a short version of Zoolookologie and I could have easily listened it for a couple of minutes more. At another moment, he switches on abstract techno jam that takes far longer (At least inside my mind). Why nothing from the Chronologie album?

But I have to say I enjoyed the show as it was happening, it's just that in hindsight I felt things could have been made a little differently.

Jarre brought various technologies on stage, such as live video feed glasses to give a POV to his keyboard and gear. This appeared to confirm that he plays the lead melody and can in other ways influence the sound, that he's not just DJ:ing his own material. Sure, all the other songs could have been playback, but there's no real reason why it would need to be so.

But this wasn't one of his large format concerts, so JMJ was on stage alone and you'd only see a glimpse of a technician.

Sun shines almost perpetually in Finland at this time of year, so at this hour you didn't even get the effect of darkening skies for the finale. The lasers and displays were strong enough, the stage utilized these different-sized vertical blocks (monolith-like) for video displays. On occasions this gave a strong sense of integration between the main and side screens, lending a sculptural appearance to the stage.

A number of AI-visuals had crept into the show, and to someone accustomed seeing them daily in social media, it felt a little off. I had a memory of Jarre using something like that already in the 2016 show, which would have been somewhat possible. (Considering the dog-eyed Deep Dream imagery of 2012) But it might be a false memory after seeing some recent live concert material on Youtube. At least in my blog I only paid attention to the more geometric visuals.

Jarre made a small speech in favour of exploring AI creatively and responsibly, but it remained unclear if some songs had been helped with AI. Another speechlet suggested the electronic music heritage is distinctly European, not grown out of rock and blues. As a simplification this has a kernel of truth, but I'm wondering why this needed to be said. Maybe Jarre, at 76, wanted to encourage younger people to pick up the baton or something.

Just as I thought I could feel somewhat happy about a concert, there was something with a hint of bad odor.

The setlist featured a Nina Kraviz-collaborated track Sex in the Machine (Kraviz absent obviously). As far as I know the Russian artist has been a little vague about the Ukraine war, and there are claims of displaying pro-military and pro-Putin sentiment. Jarre was happy to relay a message from Snowden, but what kind of message was relayed here?

Edit: Oops, I'll have to check which version was actually played, but apparently Sex in the Machine is originally a Jarre song.

Jarre didn't say anything either, but in one of the visuals the robots appeared to have the colours of Ukraine. A likely pro-Ukraine nod, but under analysis could be again seen as vague or even a mixed message. Ukraine as robots, really?