London Kid

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London Kid

Postby iefje » Mon May 22, 2017 12:55 pm

In my opinion a great instrumental track by Jean-Michel Jarre and Hank Marvin. I was watching the "Destination Docklands - The London Concert" show yesterday, where Hank is featured on "London Kid" and "Fourth Rendez-Vous". His guitar is plugged in, but I wonder if he played his part live. "London Kid" looks like it's been played live, but Hank's improvised part during "Fourth Rendez-Vous" looks mimed. Was anyone here present at the concert and what do you think?
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Re: London Kid

Postby MartcasterJunior » Mon May 22, 2017 3:54 pm

Purely based on listening to the recording of the concerts, I'd have said that it was more likely that Hank was miming on London Kid and playing live for Rendezvous VI (partly because LK sounds like the record and obviously Hank wasn't on the original Rendezvous track). The audio and video could be out of sync because of an editing fault, or it could be that they substituted audio or video footage from the other night's concert. If I remember rightly the weather was appalling so they may well have filmed both nights to get as much useable footage as possible. Of course, for those huge outdoor concerts, nothing was left to chance (least of all malfunctioning equipment), so it wouldn't have surprised me if M. Jarre had asked Hank to pre-record his bits in advance just to mitigate for any rain in the system!

To be honest, I'd be amazed if anything at that concert was live. I'm fairly sure in those days J-M Jarre concerts were a bunch of lights, fireworks and lasers and some guy at the back pressing 'play' on the CD player! I saw him front-row playing Oxygene live in Manchester Palace Theatre and that definitely *was* live though.)

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Re: London Kid

Postby iefje » Mon May 22, 2017 4:26 pm

It is possible, but I don't think even the earlier concerts were just mimed. Why would Jarre hire all those musicians just to mime to the original records? Most tracks on those concert recordings sound quite different from the originals, so they must have been played live. In the earlier days of electronic music, more musicians were required to play all parts, while later on, a lot could be pre-programmed. In the case of the Docklands concerts, it could be that the released recordings (from the second concert on October 9th, 1988) could have been mimed to an extent for safety reasons, because of the rain. I don't know if it rained the day before.
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Re: London Kid

Postby MartcasterJunior » Mon May 22, 2017 5:21 pm

I know bits of his concerts in China were played live (although I have heard that the album of those concerts went through a lot of post-production "fixing" before release). Given how unreliable early electronic instruments were in terms of tuning, and the amount of effort required to make the depth of sounds in his music, it sort of makes sense to rely on recorded versions, then you know what the audience are going to get. By the time he got to the concerts in Houston, Lyon and London, the concerts were so huge and the stages so far from the audience, it really didn't make any difference. I'm not accusing him of "cheating" - I don't think anyone who attended (or watched) those concerts could accuse him of selling people short, I just think the spectacle became more important than the "liveness" of the music. Plus you add the unpredictability of the weather and the need to sync lights, fireworks and music together, and having the bulk of your sound being pre-recorded with a few live additions makes much more sense in terms of delivering the best experience.
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Re: London Kid

Postby Didier » Tue May 23, 2017 9:51 am

Jean-Michel Jarre almost always uses a mix of live and playback for his concerts.

Hank also played "London Kid" with Jean-Michel Jarre for a TV show as part of the Eiffel Tower's 100th birthday festivities in summer 1989 :



But there it was certainly mimed...

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Re: London Kid

Postby iefje » Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:18 pm

In the sleeve notes to the album "Revolutions", it says that the album was recorded at Croissy Studios, Paris, France. Did Hank go there to record his part, or did he record it in Australia?
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Re: London Kid

Postby bgohara » Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:14 pm

co-incidentally, Hank has actually answered the question of whether he mimed at the dock lands concert, this very week. He did a radio interview with Dominic King on Radio Kent (available on the iplayer) on Wed 14th, where he said the weather was so bad they had to mime for safety reasons.
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Re: London Kid

Postby Iain Purdon » Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:16 pm

Mixing live and pre-recorded material is absolutely bog standard in big shows. It broadens the range of possibilities and enables less to be left to chance. It's just one of the theatrical elements, along with projection, light shows etc.
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Re: London Kid

Postby cockroach » Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:22 am

Blimey!

Hank doing a Milli Vanilli...what next??

:roll: :lol:
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Re: London Kid

Postby Didier » Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:08 am

iefje wrote:In the sleeve notes to the album "Revolutions", it says that the album was recorded at Croissy Studios, Paris, France. Did Hank go there to record his part, or did he record it in Australia?

The Croissy studio is Jean-Michel Jarre's own studio, west of Paris, not very far from where I live (not sure it's still there). But Hank didn't come there, he recorded his part in Australia.

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