In the past couple of years, us Tangerine Dream fans have been rather spoilt by the amount of high-quality historical pieces and releases that have come our way. First of all we had the beautiful edition of Edgar Froese’s biography, Force Majeure, a mammoth book that was obviously lovingly put together and was a must-have item.
This was followed by Margarete Kreuzer’s wonderful documentary Revolution Of Sound that was shown at cinemas (I saw a screening in London) and was eventually released on DVD. Then came the Zeitraffer exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre, which I was lucky enough to see before it had to close early because of the covid-19 pandemic. Sadly, it was planned to go to other cities, which it’s not been able to do yet because of the ongoing situation (hopefully this year it can travel again).
As with this Itinerary book, these have all been overseen by Bianca Froese-Acquaye, who has made sure that Tangerine Dream fans are getting high-quality products and the history of the band while keeping the name alive and vibrant. (Let’s not forget here the two massive Virgin released CD boxsets In Search Of Hades 1973-79 and Pilots Of Purple Twilight 1980-83).Brad Duke’s book is a massive 448-page volume that looks at the band’s concert memorabilia, from its beginnings in 1970 to the final performances before the passing of band leader Edgar Froese. I have to start off by saying that this is one of the most lavishly illustrated books I’ve ever seen in connection with a musical artist, and it also weighs quite a bit and is beautifully put together, making sure that the fans get a quality product. It is also an important slice of history that in some ways becomes a visual narrative for Froese’s autobiography.
“I made this book because I wanted to own it”, says Duke in his brief introduction, but throughout the rest of the volume he lets the images do the talking, with only captions by each photo telling you where the item is from an what year. Before each section, Duke list’s the entire tour dates for that year (or album), giving you a comprehensive list of every Tangerine Dream concert ever performed.
Some of the earlier posters are a little more basic or look like a political party flyer, but what wouldn’t I give to own the gorgeous Zeit-era Planet Concert poster. When Virgin signed the band, the art department went into overdrive for them and the melting Phaedra vinyl is pretty iconic now. Here we see the shows and releases being advertised in a more visually stunning way that matches the beautiful album sleeves of that era. The program for the October 1975 UK tour is one of those early Tangerine Dream must-have items as its more like a magazine (and cost only 40p at the time), and here we have the famous photo advertisement of Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann in front of their equipment in 1976, an image that still looks sci-fi and otherworldly.
The European Cyclone Laserium tour poster from 1978 is certainly an eye opener and matches the later 1980/1981 German tour posters for psychedelic sensuality. It was the Johannes Schmoeling era when I first saw the band live, so the posters and the programmes (I still have a couple of them) are the ones that bring back fond memories for me. It was in the 1980s where some of the poster designs become a lot more uniform and less idiosyncratic. The book also contains tour logs and diagrams for stage setups, which is a fascinating insight to how the band operated at the time, and especially on how the equipment would be arranged for various tours.
Dukes has done an incredible job of putting this book together and you can tell it’s a labour of love, with each item carefully placed on the page and within its historical context. The book is so full of stunning images that you have to revisit it a few times just to take in the wealth of material collected inside its hardbound cover.
As a piece of TD memorabilia itself, the book is must-own item, whether you want to wallow in the wonderful nostalgia of the seventies or take in the dramatic designs of the 2000s. Brad has put together something quite special and it really is an incredible achievement to collect so much of this stuff together and cover a forty-four year period in the band’s history.-Gary Parsons-
