There are just some artists that are classic and you would always want a chance to be able to see them, but not every album is the most of a winner. That is because one of their albums was such a banger that that one specifically stays rent-free in your mind, and all of the rest passes by.
Moon Safari by Air is one of those albums coming from the 90s. Most of the stuff that Air made afterwards I have registered it, but it was never such a legend as that Moon Safari was.
I had already seen on Youtube that Air was playing their entire Moon Safari album integral live in some shows over the last couple of years. But when the word was out they were visiting my hometown of Eindhoven with this show, I didn't hesitate a second and got me some tickets to see the show!
What I often find about albums is that how the songs are placed on an album that tells a story. So putting it on shuffle would be like cursing in church, because these songs are in this line for a damn good reason.
So also in this live show, Air played all Moon Safari songs in the order that is also on the album, and I absolutely loved it!
You literally know the setlist starting starting with La Femme d'argent and then afterwards putting up the pace with Sexy Boy. And they did well!
I mean, these guys are old and have some serious age in years adding up on stage. But the show was fresh and they seemed to enjoy what they were doing.
All I need came afterwards and of course singer Beth Hirsch was not there to accompany them, so they had a vocoder with Beths voice on there. Honestly, that was the biggest fail if you ask me. Especially in 'All I need' the voice of Beth is so fragile and the vocoder kind of digitalized this and that took away a lot of the effect.
The vocoder also came back in You make it easy, but here it was less annoying and it actually came out quite well.
These guys were doing a good job, and the crowd was with them, everyone looked super enthusiastic.
After running the entire album which lasts about an hour I thought with playing Moon Safari it would be it. These guys are at age and it was stated that they would play the whole album.
But after a brief applause and leaving the stage they came back again to play some more recent songs which I hadn't expected!
With Venus passing by and Cherry Blossom girl and even Run this brought a bit mixture of unexpected gifts.
Ending the set with Don't be Light it all felt very uptempo all of a sudden and that was when people were really starting to get excited!
Again, it was the end of the set. Again, there was applause, and again the left to come back to play Alone in Kyoto and another song that I didn't know which kind of ended in chaos.
For me that next encore was not really necessary, ending with Don't be Light would have been fantastic already.
But who cares, the more Air time, the better it was in this case!
This was the best show of the year so far if you ask me. Air was feeling it and the vibe was fantastic even though the average age of the visitor was well above the half century old ;)))
But wow it was hot inside the building. The Klokgebouw was sold out and we all know what that means. The klokgebouw is an old Philips venue which used to be a factory and that does not have the airco capacity to have 5000 people in there.
It was damp and it was steamy and I literally nearly passed out. But we all didn't mind.
It was also cool to see the local newspaper ED.nl write about this show to see that there were more enthusiasts about this spectacle.
This was a memorable show and brought back a lot of memories. More than one friend has used All I need as an alarm clock in the morning to wake up to, so for sure I wasn't the only one who was happy with this evening!
