Air live at Royal Albert Hall review: an exhilarating trip into retro-futurism
Last night, the Royal Albert Hall became a spacecraft. At the controls: Air, as they played their era-defining masterpiece Moon Safari in full to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the record.
The Parisian duo, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, were dressed in immaculate white and performed from inside a bright, glowing rectangular box of video screens and lights – the command post for the show. In fact, at one point, the screens actually did transform into the deck of a spaceship as planets flew by, and they took us on a journey through their space-age lounge music.
And, boy, it was a hell of a trip. One that had you looking back to the past and peering forward, light years into the future. As the opening notes of first song La Femme d’Argent rippled through the crowd, we were immediately teleported back to 1998 when their album Moon Safari was released.
Back then it felt inescapable, a record that captured the zeitgeist and was a soundtrack to hazy morning afters and dinner parties alike. It was also an album which gave rise to a sea of dull chill out music. But, with the songs reimagined here – pulled apart and stretched and given more muscle by drummer Louis Delorme – it shone a light on what a brilliant, timeless and unique collection of songs it really is.
Rather than ‘chill out’, this show was exhilarating. The songs longer and louder; weirder and more widescreen. That first track built from a gentle caress into swirling psychedelia, while Kelly Watch The Stars pulsed with a relentless groove, and the blissed-out Ce matin-là was a burst of sunlight.
In the absence of vocalist Beth Hirsch, the sampling of her voice for All I Need showed how to reimagine a song without losing its beguiling essence.
They followed Moon Safari with a run through their other greatest hits: the forlorn beauty of Cherry Blossom Girl from 2004’s Talkie Walkie, the effervescent space-prog of Don’t Be Light and the gorgeous stillness of Alone In Kyoto (that one from Lost In Translation).
It all ended with Electronic Performers – a nod to the electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. The comparison highlighted the fact that Air are trailblazers as well.
Moon Safari is often called retro-futurist – the record inspired both by the duo’s nostalgia for their childhood and the promised space age that never arrived.
As they steered us back to earth and the show ended, it became clear that it’s their ability to take from the past to create something that sounds like the future that makes them so special.
Air play Royal Albert Hall tonight (May 31)
