The languid opening notes of La Femme d’Argent are a musical madeleine that elicits a collective gasp from the Coliseum. God only knows how many late nights and fuzzy dawns Air’s album Moon Safari soundtracked when it came out in 1998. It seemed to be everywhere, like an essential utility, and triggered a deluge of chill-out music, none of which could outdo the Parisian duo’s lambent beauty and chic retro-futurism.
While playing all of Moon Safari, followed by a greatest hits set, in the gilded home of English National Opera is an enticing enough notion, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel deliver far more than high-end nostalgia. They have sometimes struggled to transport their exquisitely arranged music to the stage, but tonight’s presentation is light years ahead, propelled by technology that was inconceivable in 1998. Air have reimagined intimately familiar songs in an audiovisual extravaganza as spectacular as any arena show. It’s a trip.
The strangely ageless duo – Godin on guitars, Dunckel on synths –and their drummer perform in an oblong box lined with video screens and lights. Dressed in immaculate white, they could be the house band for the interstellar salon in 2001: A Space Odyssey – a 60s dream of the world to come. The walls glow like the chamber of a volcano, buzz with imagery from 80s video arcades, and shoot through a tunnel of stars. For Venus, the box transforms into the deck of a spaceship, racing past brightly coloured planets like a scene from Guardians of the Galaxy. Two evocative instrumentals written for Sofia Coppola movies enhance the sense that this is as much a cinematic experience as a musical one.
The music is widescreen, too – everything larger and wilder than on record, with vintage synthesisers taking on the work of the studio arrangements and the drummer injecting prog-rock steroids. Songs steeped in Serge Gainsbourg, Kraftwerk and electronic pioneers such as Jean-Jacques Perrey acquire the freaky velocity of Hawkwind and the imperial grandeur of Pink Floyd. Air initially announced a short run of dates in major European cities but they’ve kept adding more, and no wonder. This jawdropping show could run and run.
