On 7 September, he held an out-of-the-ordinary event at Gammel Vrå Enge windmill park near the Aalborg in Denmark. Titled ‘Aero’, the show’s central theme was ‘energy and environment’ and bizarrely, the wind played the lead part, not only as energy, but also as a carrier of sounds, images and messages.
The concert consisted of 16 Jean Michel Jarre numbers, both classics and new material, with a scenography that was radically different from his previous concerts. The show featured a number of visual treats such as the windmills ablaze in light, and pyro exploding in sync with the music. Lighting designer Lars Nissen (Eurovision 2001), of lighting rental company Seelite, was responsible for lighting the show: 10 massive windmills, a large stage and a sizable projection cyc were illuminated throughout, and to achieve this, Nissen used Martin Pro kit, including 150 MAC 600 and 30 MAC 300 washlights, 60 MAC 2000 profile spots, 60 Atomic 3000 strobes and 29 Exterior 600 colour changers.
"The windmills were positioned to face the stage, all with spinning rotors," explained Nissen. "We illuminated each windmill using three Exterior 600s, a MAC 2000, three Atomic strobes and a Space Cannon. It was a very open design . . . 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 and the windmills in the distance, gave a great 3D look."Another important element in the design was a large PIGI projection which ran videos for each song. We matched the colour of the lighting with the colours on the video, using a dominant colour for each song . . . Even the colour of the fireworks matched with what was happening on screen."
With a European television audience estimated to be in the millions, Nissen created looks specifically for TV. "We placed MAC 300s and smoke machines under the large grille stage to illuminate upwards. This created a strong image for the TV audience and the TV cameras picked it up well."
As ever, compromises had to be made to cater for the TV production. The audience itself was often illuminated in white light and extra lighting was needed because of the poor weather.
