Description
In 2024, Tangerine Dream performed a concert at London’s Barbican theatre titled Phaedra at 50, which was advertised as a celebration of the band’s groundbreaking 1974 album Phaedra at which a “cross-section of music from their expansive career and songs from their seminal album” would be performed. At the time of the concert there were no original members of the 1974 band performing in the group, whose current longest-serving member, Thorsten Quaeschning, only joined in 2005. Unlike many other bands who have toured live performances of their classic albums that cleave as closely as possible to the original recordings, this latest version of Tangerine Dream instead chose to perform a contemporary live session based on elements of the original album, while the ‘cross-section of music from their expansive career’ was weighted towards recent releases, with only five older tracks (one from the 1970s and four from the early 1980s) featured in the 13-song setlist, with each of these tracks also performed in a contemporary remixed/rearranged form rather than faithfully to the original album recordings. A variety of issues are raised both by these choices, and by the continuation of a band as a recording and performing entity long after the founder of the group died in 2015. Rather than follow a typical ‘heritage rock’ path (see also Homan 2019), the group persists as an evergreen band releasing new music, and playing with ideas of nostalgia and authenticity. In this presentation I will explore these issues as well as broader issues of legitimacy (related to both fans and in legal terms), and will extend on Andy Bennett’s (2009) discussions of aura in relation to tribute performances.| Period | 7 Jul 2025 → 11 Jul 2025 |
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| Event title | IASPM XXIII biennial international conference - Recording popular music - Recording les musiques populaires |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Paris, FranceShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |