Tangerine Dream at Coventry Cathedral, 1975

In 1975 experimental synth pioneers Tangerine Dream played a concert in a modern marvel, Basil Spence's Coventry Cathedral.






Many bands have played all sorts of music at the cathedral: Duke Ellington; Mogwai; The Enemy; Tinchy Stryder; John Dankworth; Eats Everything; Robert Fripp; Chase and Status. John Lennon and Yoko Ono came and planted seed in the grounds in 1968. But none were as controversial as German electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream.






They played 30 years after the end of World War Two, and their experimental and spiritual music seemed very fitting for the venue. It was filmed by the BBC, but the audio was lost. A restored version, using a dubbed version of their 1975 album Ricochet, was later released on DVD. Ricochet had itself been spawned by a concert recording at Croydon Fairfield Halls.




So this footage is very odd: great shots of them playing, and the cathedral looking entirely bonkers. But mismatching audio, one of those might-have-beens lost to history. Whatever, the film is still brilliant.

Comments

  1. That explains the mismatch between music and musicians in the video, but it still works somehow. This was part of a tour of European cathedrals, they also played in York Minster, in darkness apparently. There is an interesting video of their 1984 concert in Warsaw made by Polish TV. Another remarkable gig considering what happened to that city in the war under German occupation.

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  2. Good stuff. I wrote an epiphany in The Wire about this many years ago. Btw, love Concretopia, especially that it's from a layperson's POV. Glad you didn't use an academic-sounding three-part subtitle.

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