Lighting Jean Michel Jarre's Tribute To The Wind

Yes, it rained. Yes, it was muddy. And yes, it was a nightmare getting home. But in true showman fashion, Jean Michel Jarre went on with the show.

Electronic music pioneer and composer Jean Michel Jarre is an innovative performer known as much for his elaborate outdoor shows as his music. Jarre recently added to his reputation for groundbreaking outdoor performances with an extraordinary show in northern Denmark.

On September 7, 2002 Jarre held an out-of-the-ordinary event at Gammel Vrå Enge windmill park near the Danish city of Aalborg. With the working title ´Aero´, the concert’s central theme was “energy and environment”. Jean Michel Jarre himself explains, "The wind is playing the lead part, not only as energy, but also as carrier of sounds, images, messages and dreams. The wind carries birds, pollen - but also smoke and pollution. The wind brings us in contact with all the worst and all the best - the choice is ours.”

The concert consisted of sixteen Jean Michel Jarre numbers, both classics and new material, with a scenography that was radically different from his previous concerts. The show was an unforgettable event for the public, as well as for large TV, radio and Internet audiences, with special visual treats such as massive windmills ablaze in light and fireworks exploding in sync with the music.

Lighting Designer Lars Nissen of Seelite was the man responsible for lighting the exceptional show. With huge events like Eurovision 2001 to his credit, Lars is experienced in lighting Denmark’s biggest concert events. Rental company Seelite supplied all Martin lighting through Martin’s home country distributor, Martin Danmark.

Windmills integral part of design
Ten massive windmills, a large stage and a sizable projection cyc were illuminated throughout the concert. Lars incorporated some 150 MAC 600 and 30 MAC 300 washlights, 60 MAC 2000 profile spots, 60 Atomic 3000 strobes and 29 Exterior 600 color changers into the design.

He met with Jean Michel Jarre a month before the show to talk about unique ways to express his classic songs in a new way. Lars comments, “The windmills were positioned to face the stage, all with spinning roters. We illuminated each windmill using 3 Exterior 600s, a MAC 2000, three Atomic strobes and a Space Cannon. Ten windmills were illuminated in all. It was a very open design – with trussing on the sides and no covering - so the audience could look through the stage and see the windmills behind. The depth of view with Jean Michel Jarre in the foreground, the trussing behind him and the windmills in the distance, gave a great 3D look. There was a windmill behind the audience as well, which was a great look.

Light video synchronicity
“Another important element in the design was a large Pigi screen which ran videos for each song. We matched the color of the lighting with the colors on the video, using a particular dominant color for each song. One of the great scenes was the ‘Garden’ number where we matched the lighting projection on the windmills with the video. Even the color of the fireworks matched with what was happening on screen.”

Lars used 96 of the MAC 600s on stage, 50 of those as cyc lighting positioned on the back wall in a row behind the stage. Lars washed the Pigi screen in various colors, even creating a sunrise and sundown effect with MAC 600s in which he started in blue and then changed to red and then yellow. Lars also used MAC 600s and Pigi on top of eachother. As Pigi projected text, MAC 600s laid down a wash of yellow that Lars described as “color madness”. 

TV lighting
With a television audience in the millions watching around Europe, Lars created looks specifically for TV viewers. “We placed MAC 300s (and smoke machines) under the large grill stage to illuminate upwards. This gave a good effect for the TV audience and the TV cameras picked it up well.”

Lars admits that certain compromises had to be made on behalf of the live audience because of the TV production. The audience itself was often illuminated in white light and extra lighting was needed because of the poor weather. Yet, according to Lars, seldom has he seen an audience look so astonished. “When you looked at the audience, they had this look of amazement on their faces as they looked up at the windmills, the lighting and the fireworks. And as the rain kept coming down they seemed amazed that the show kept going on.”

Despite a heavy downpour Jean Michel Jarre seemed happy with the show. "I was so happy about the evening we shared with so many people. It was one of my life’s most memorable concerts! The audience’s joy and energy made a lasting impression on me. I have to congratulate everybody on the Danish production team whose fine work and good spirit made this project a reality."