Jean-Michel Jarre-The Concerts in China (1982)

In 1981, Frenchman Jean-Michel Jarre became the first Western musician to perform in China after the communist era of Mao Zedong. His five concerts in Beijing and Shanghai were more of a diplomatic event than a series of musical performances, initiating a kind of political and cultural exchange with France. For the occasion, Jarre deployed a vast array of expensive technological equipment, including state-of-the-art synthesizers, giant screens, multiple projectors, and an innovative laser system. He even composed a series of new pieces inspired by Eastern music, which he performed with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra. To power the enormous equipment, entire neighborhoods in both cities had to be shut down. The concert was projected onto massive visual screens atop some of the tallest buildings in both cities. Musically, Jarre blended passages from his two albums released at the time, "Oxygene" and "Equinoxe", with pieces adorned with traditional Chinese atmospheres that he had composed for the occasion. A year later, the double album "The Concerts In China" was released, featuring material taken from that successful tour of the Asian country. Without a doubt, Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts in China constitute a fundamental part of the history of modern music and represent an enormous human and technical challenge, something the Frenchman would repeat in other colossal concerts later on, such as those held in Paris, London, and Houston, each of which drew more than a million spectators.