Destination Docklands was a concert held by musician Jean Michel Jarre on the Royal Victoria Docks, Docklands, London on Saturday October 8 and Sunday October 9, 1988, to coincide with the release of Jarre's new album Revolutions. The concerts were attended by 200,000 people (not including the people who watched the concert from the nearby streets and households) and the October 8 show was broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio One, featuring concert commentary by DJ Simon Bates - including his trademark colourful descriptions of what was a night of horrendous weather, which threatened to severely hamper the performance.

Accompanied by heavy wind, rain and fireworks, the concert also featured The Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin who joined Jarre on the tracks "London Kid" and "Fourth Rendez-Vous". A live album and a VHS were released afterwards, however fans who attended the concerts have been quoted saying that the VHS release failed to capture the grandure and spirit of the event.

grandstands for the audience (surrounding a standing-room area) lined the North side of the dock. The warehouses on the South side of the dock, by then mostly empty, were painted white to provide enormous backdrops for projected images, along with a number of large scaffolding installations in between, matching the height of the warehouses. The stage floated in the middle of the dock and the concert was accompanied by the musician's trademark breathtaking firework and searchlight show. The original concept was to have the floating stage traverse up and down the Docks, providing a view of the stage to the audience on the North Bank - however, strong winds and prevailing rain prevented this from occurring and the stage stayed anchored for the duration of the concerts [although this is contested](indeed, wind almost caused one of the hung scaffolding backdrops to be torn from its mountings after the October 8 show with repairs having to be undertaken before the following night's performance).

Mike Mansfield Productions

Mike Mansfield Productions is an independant production company based in London. Himself and his production crew hired for the night (who went on to do more Jean Michel Jarre concerts including "Paris La Defense" [1990] and "The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun" [2000]) recorded the concert on the first night (Saturday's performance). Many of the cameras set up on the night were knocked out due to prevailing winds and torrental rainfall.

However, Mansfield was largely slated for cutting the entire 2 hour extravaganza to just 50 minutes, when it was aired on TV in Christmas of 1988 (and further more the retail VHS). Songs cut out were such as the entire Zoolook album, Much of the Rendezvous songs, Equnioxe 5 to name a few.

A worthwhile thing to notice is that he paid a little too much attention to the artists itself and no or very little attention was paid to the scenary of the concert, cutaways from the artist and stage itself, such as images projected onto the white building backdrops. This is probably because much of the scenery around the concert was battered by the strong gusts and rainfall, some of it even tearing the backdrops.

Track listing for concert

Part 1: Industrial Revolution

• Industrial Revolution: Overture
• Industrial Revolution: Part 1
• Industrial Revolution: Part 2
• Industrial Revolution: Part 3
• Equinoxe 5
• Ethnicolor

Part 2: Swinging Sixties

• Computer Weekend
• Les Champs Magnetiques II / Magnetic Fields II
• Oxygene 4
• Equinoxe 7
• London Kid (with Hank Marvin)

Part 3: The Nineties

• Third Rendez-Vous / Laser Harp
• Tokyo Kid
• Revolutions
• Souvenir de Chine / Souvenir of China
• Second Rendez-Vous
• Fourth Rendez-Vous

Part 4: The Finale

• September
• The Emigrant

Musicians

• Jean-Michel Jarre: Synthesizers
• Michel Geiss: Synthesizers
• Dominique Perrier: Synthesizers
• Francis Rimbert: Synthesizers
• Guy Delacroix: Bass
• Jo Hammer: Drums
• Dino Lumbroso: Percussions
• Sylvain Durand: Synthesizers
• Christine Durand: Soprano

• Hank Marvin: Guitar on London Kid and Fourth Rendez-Vous
• Mireille Pombo: Vocals on September
• Sori Bamba: Conductor of Mali Choir on September
• Kudsi Erguner: Turkish Flute on Revolutions
• Bruno Rossignol: Choir Conductor
• Xavier Bellenger: Ethnical Music Advisor
• Setsuko Yamada: Solo Dance Performance

Instruments used

• Akai MPC-60
• ARP 2600
• Batterie Simmons SDX
• Cavagnolo MIDY 20
• Casio SAX DH-100
• Cristal Baschet
• Dynacord ADD1
• Elka AMK-800
• Elka Synthex
• EMS Synthi AKS
• EMS Vocodery Emulator
• Ensoniq ESQ-1
• Fairlight
• Stratocaster guitar
• Laser Harp
• Kawai K5
• LAG Insecte
• LAG Circulaire
• LAG Meuble
• Matrisequencer
• OSCar
• Roland D-50
• Roland S-50
• Yamaha KX5

References

External links

• Pictures of the Event