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Tangerine Dream Live

Encore

- Live/Studio, released October 1977 -

Covers


CD release Europe 1995
Photo: Monique Froese
Layout: Edgar Froese

CD release UK 1984
Photo: Monique Froese

LP release Yugoslavia 1977
Photo: Monique Froese


Tracks

[a][b]
1.Cherokee Lane 16:1916:27
2.Monolight 19:5419:57
3.Coldwater Canyon 18:0618:08
4.Desert Dream 17:3017:52
5.Encore [1977 remix]-3:17
6.Hobo March -4:47
Total running time71:4980:28


Details

Recording dateMarch - April 1977
Recording engineer(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Composer(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann
Musician(s)Edgar Froese, Chris Franke, Peter Baumann


Notes

In spring 1977 Tangerine Dream performed a sell-out tour in the USA. They were supported by the visual effects of a Krypton gas laser by Laserium, and tickets in several cities were sold-out within days. Unfortunately a second tour during summer hat to be cancelled after only four gigs due to the promoter's sudden bankrupt. In October 1977 Virgin released the double-album Encore that featured four long tracks allegedly recorded during the first tour. Some of the music based on themes from Ricochet, Stratosfear and Sorcerer. The track titles Coldwater Canyon (including Edgar Froese's longest guitar solo on record) and Cherokee Lane originate from the roads in Beverly Hills near Los Angeles, where TD lived for a while during the tour.

 


Backtracking with Tangerine Dream

Edgar Froese: "There's a piece on here, Monolight, which shows our classical leanings. We tend to listen to classical music, and feel very close to Bach because of the counterpoint, the use of sequences and the masterpieces he wrote in terms of basslines. Jack Bruce said Bach was the greatest bass-player ever, and I completely agree."

Chris Franke: "The comparison with classical music is difficult, but we do write long, instrumental pieces, very dynamic, partly aggressive, partly lyrical."

(Interview with Johnny Black, thisBEAT, issue 17, April 1986)

 


In fact, Encore is no more a live album than Ricochet (1975) had been: The first composition, Cherokee Lane indeed follows the line the opening track of each concert took, but the concrete recording as heard on Encore seems to be a compilation of live parts, sound checks or even pre-tour rehearsals. Edgar Froese in an 1985 interview with Mark Jenkins: "We had to grab together some bits and pieces -- on Cherokee Lane there were pieces from three of four concerts, so we got a lot of letters saying 'I've got the tape from the concert you played here and I can't find that part anywhere!'"

 


The second track, Monolight might be the only part of the album that had really been recorded entirely live. It orginates from the Washington gig, with only a few overdubs made afterwards. A complete radio broadcast of this concert was made available as part of the The Bootleg Box Set Vol. 2 (2004) after it had been fan-released as Tangerine Tree Volume 4: Washington 1977 (2002).

 


Edgar Froese in the same interview about the question, whether Coldwater Canyon was a genuine live piece: "Why do you think it wasn't? In fact we played that piece on a lot fewer dates than the others because it came from the second half of the tour." Indeed, apparently only one of the four gigs of the second tour has been recorded by fans, but this one does not feature Coldwater Canyon, and given its structure and sound it appears to be a studio creation, regardless of what Froese did say.

 


Desert Dream finally is a sound collage not at all reminscent to the material performed live during the tour. It was mixed by Peter Baumann from several bits and pieces recorded in the studio, even incorporating parts of Oedipus Tyrannus Act Two: Zeus that had been unreleased by then. Edgar Froese: "When we were doing Encore in 1977 we used a piece of music that we'd made for the play Oedipus Tyrannus at the Chichester Festival under Keith Mitchell a couple of years before. Generally we wouldn't do that, but one of the reasons was the departure of Peter Baumann. The whole record was done when Peter decided to stay in the States so we looked back to what we had and used a couple of pieces from rehearsals we did, and the Oedipus pieces which came from CBS studios in London in '74 - '75." One longer section intended by Peter Baumann to be part of Desert Dream but apparently rejected by Franke and/or Froese was later released as stand-alone track Haunted Heights on the '70-'80 box set.

 


Nevertheless, Encore is supposed to be the definitive live TD album among many fans, and it was the last record featuring Peter Baumann, for after the last concert of the abridged tour he informed Edgar Froese and Chris Franke that his private obligations no longer allowed him a full-time collaboration with TD. In November 1977 Peter Baumann left TD for good and started working as a solo artist and producer. He built his own studio in Berlin, before finally leaving that city and moving to New York.

 


Edgar Froese about the leaving of Peter Baumann: "I told Peter Baumann to leave the band. We were in a grave situation stylistically. We wanted to go on further, creating new things and buying more equipment -- learning a lot of new stuff. With his studio he couldn't even practise with us, because his studio was taking up all his time. [...] It was a little strange during the American tour when he said: 'Right, I have to go back to Berlin for a few days to see a guy who is doing the acoustics in the studio.' [...] But anyway, we didn't split on a fight. We just told him to leave and in the end I think he felt OK with us. He's gone to America now, and in the meantime he's sold his studio and is setting up a new one in New York. It's stupid and he's done it for nothing really. He gave up what I think was a creative band and is now sitting in a room somewhere, playing some sort of music. Still, if he feels OK then that's alright." (Interview with Neumusik, January 1980)

 


From 30 Years Of Dreaming

At the beginning of 1977, Peter Baumann was occupied with arranging his studio in Berlin and incorporating new equipment. It was left to Froese and Franke to plan the forthcoming tour in the United States. The tour started on 29th March in Milwaukee, and ended on 26th April but was later extended with four concerts in July and August. The tour turned out to be a very big success and many concerts were sold out in only a few days. Some concerts had to be cancelled since some of the promoters went bankrupt when Emerson, Lake and Palmer called off a big tour with a 120-piece orchestra. The promoters -- and Tangerine Dream -- lost a lot of money.

A new P.A. system -- specially designed for Tangerine Dream in England -- was brought into use on that tour. It was designed by Martin Audio and was able to handle both the very deep bass and the very clear sound that a synthesizer can produce. Especially the lowest spectrum of a synthesizer sound can be very violent to a speaker system, but this new equipment could handle it and play loud -- and it was played very LOUD!

For the concerts, Tangerine Dream had chosen to use the company "The Laserium Light Show" for the visual side of the tour. It was one of the first companies to incorporate lasers in their light show, which they have been doing since 1973. Sent through different kinds of prisms and modulated otherwise, a laser can create the most unbelievable and beautiful colours, figures and forms in three dimensions. For many years, The Laserium was located at the Planetarium in London, and every day there were several shows; to the music of Pink Floyd, Jean Michel Jarre and Alan Parsons you could experience a "laserist" improvise -- and it was different from show to show.

I myself have taken the journey below the star dome in the London Planetarium quite a few times, and it has been an extraordinary experience every time. If you remember the last part of Stanley Kubrick's famous movie 2001, you will have an idea of what it was like... Sadly, the Laserium in London does not exist anymore!

Miles from the New Musical Express wrote about his experience of the Laserium at the concert in Washington D.C: "A nebulous cloud appeared on the screen behind the group. It floated, ever-changing, in an illusion of three dimensions, like an universe in creation. The intensity of the red laser light gave the projected image a degree of substance that a conventional light-show lack. It was as if flames were burning inside the cloud!" (NME 16/7, 1977)

The tour was immortalised on the double album Encore which came out in October 1977. It made its way to a 55th placement on the English charts. The music is the well-known style from the past few years -- four long pieces that each take up one side of the album. The album sounds very live-like and the presence of the audience is quite obvious, but a lot of re-mixing and pasting of music from different concerts and recordings from the performance Oedipus Tyrannus was done at the studio afterwards. Bootlegs of the concerts show a different picture; the concerts were much more heavy and raw than Encore seems to reflect!

It was Peter Baumann who did the mixing on the album and that would become his last assignment as a musician in Tangerine Dream; he left the group in November to concentrate on a solo career. There had been a lot of controversy during the seven years the trio played and toured together, and the rumours had been whirling: Peter Baumann had left the band, he was being replaced by a computer, he had gone solo, he had re-entered the band, he had never left, and so on...

Shortly before the final break, and while the three musicians were still submitted to stay together in Tangerine Dream, both Baumann and Froese talked about the situation in the band in different interviews with Miles:

Baumann: "We want to be very cautious about what we are doing. We are not splitting up, we are not married! It's always the same with a group; you can have a common status when you start but I cannot imagine three people having over six years the same kind of development musically and personally -- both very important. So it's more than natural that we say we have to be aware of what we are doing, otherwise we will lose our identity. Edgar is 8 or 9 years older than me. He is married. He has a child. I think these things really do matter to the kind of things you are playing. We had no discussion in the beginning -- we had the same background -- we just did it and we found this is what we wanted to do. The world has changed in the last seven years. We just thought we couldn't go on with what we did in the beginning -- it would be dishonest. The end was Ricochet and the new beginning was Stratosfear. This is a time of changing!" (Miles, NME 16/7, 1977)

Froese: "What I've found is that all the success of the last one and a half years was psychologically a bit much, you know? I'm 33 now and I've been connected professionally with music for about 13 or 14 years so it doesn't get to me. I think I can handle money very carefully -- I've got quite a lot of knowledge about it. But these two boys are ten years younger and they've got a high income. And you have to be fair. You have to help them a little bit to get everything the right way; not buying big cars, liquor... success is something which could happen for one week or ten years, you know? It depends on an intelligent operation situation". (Miles, NME 16/7, 1977)

But their opinions on how the band should be run were too different and Peter Baumann finally left. They parted at a time when Tangerine Dream were at the peak of their creativity and also very popular. They were later to meet each other again on a more professional level many years later.

Baumann wanted to do something more popular and dance-like music -- or something on "the edge-points of pop music", as he called it himself -- and for a few years he was still very active as a musician. It led to records in his own name with melodic electro-pop and he had a cooperation with the singer Robert Palmer, among others.

© 1999 by Kent Eskildsen

 


Re-Releases

 


In 1984 the album was released on CD for the first time as part of a series by Virgin. With the exception of Exit, all releases of this series had a similar cover design, using only part of the original artwork in a monochrome border that featured the band and album title.

 


In 1995 Virgin re-released the album on CD in the so-called "Definitive Edition" series, featuring the original front cover artwork.

 


In 2009 the album was re-released in Japan with a cardboard sleeve featuring the exact replica of the original LP sleeve.

 


In 2012 the original album was re-released as part of the compilation box The Virgin Years 1977-1983.

 


In 2019 the album was re-released with two bonus tracks. In fact, this version is identical to disc fourteen of the In Search Of Hades box set, featuring the original album, newly remastered by Ben Wiseman from the original tapes. The bonus tracks are taken from the Monolight single.


Releases

Australia
1977: Virgin/Festival
2LP [a]: L 45775/6; green labels, foc
Benelux
1977: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 25 524; green labels, foc
2LP [a]: 25 524; red/green labels, foc
Canada
1977: Virgin/Polydor
2LP [a]: VD 2506; multi-coloured labels, foc
2LP [a]: VD 2506; red/green labels, foc
1994: Virgin/EMI
CD [a]: 839 443-2
Europe
1995: Virgin
CD [a]: 839 443-2; identical to UK version from 1995
2019: Virgin/Universal
CD [b]: 774 698-0; multi-coloured disc; sticker
France
1977: Virgin/Polydor
2LP [a]: 2676 714; green labels with printing "Made in France", foc
2LP [a]: 2676 714; green labels with printing "Fabrique en France", foc
1981: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 301 244; red/green labels, foc
1983: Virgin
2LP [a]: 60 015; red/green labels, foc
1984: Virgin
CD [a]: CDV 2506; identical to UK version from 1984
Germany
1977: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 25 495; green labels, foc
2LP [a]: 25 495; red/green labels, foc
1984: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 25 495; white/gray labels, foc
CD [a]: 610 374; identical to UK version from 1984 with the German order number on a sticker fixed on the jewel case
1993: Virgin
CD [a]: 786 538-2
Greece
1977: Virgin/Phonogram
2LP [a]: 2676 714; green labels, foc
Italy
1977: Virgin/Dischi
2LP [a]: AVIL 212506; multi-coloured labels, foc
2LP [a]: AVIL 212506; red/green labels, foc
Japan
1978: Virgin/Victor
Promo-2LP [a]: VIP 9535/6; white promo labels, foc
2LP [a]: VIP 9535/6; green labels, foc
1990: Virgin
CD [a]: VJCP-2525
Promo-CD [a]: VJCP-2525; same as regular release, but with additional red promo sticker
2009: EMI
CD [a]: VJCP-68917; cardboard sleeve, obi
Promo-CD [a]: VJCP-68917; same as regular release, but with additional numbered sticker on rear
New Zealand
1977: Virgin/RTC
2LP [a]: VD 2506; green labels, foc
2LP [a]: VD 2506; red/green labels, foc
Spain
1978: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 25 495; green labels, foc
1983: Virgin/Ariola
2LP [a]: 25 495; red/green labels, foc
Taiwan
19??: Woodstock & L.M.
2LP [a]: RS-1010; brown picture labels, cover with different colours
UK
1977: Virgin
2LP [a]: VD 2506; green labels, foc
2LP [a]: VD 2506; red/green labels, foc
1984: Virgin
CD [a]: CDVD 2506
1995: Virgin
CD [a]: TAND 1
USA
1977: Virgin/CBS
Promo-2LP [a]: PZG 35014; multi-coloured promo labels, foc with gold/silver promo stamps
2LP [a]: PZG 35014; multi-coloured labels, foc
8 track tape [a]: GAP 35014
1994: Virgin
CD [a]: V21Y 39 443-2
Yugoslavia
1977: Virgin/RTB
2LP [a]: 5733/4; green labels, foc with a different design without any US flag; with star saying 'SREBRNA' (i.e. 'silver') on cover photo
2LP [a]: 5733/4; green labels, foc with a different design without any US flag; without star on cover photo
Encore was also released as part of the set (3).

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