Live From Gdańsk

On 26 August 2005 Jarre performed Space of Freedom at the Gdańsk Shipyard, marking twenty-five years of Solidarność — the trade union born at that shipyard, and the movement that began the unravelling of Soviet communism in Europe. The site was the point: the cranes and the yard aren't a backdrop here, they're the subject.

He played with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic and the Gdańsk University Choir, running the familiar catalogue — Oxygène, Rendez-Vous, Chronologie, Aero — through an unusually wide instrumental range, including barrel organ, theremin, accordion and wind synthesiser alongside the laser harp.

At the centre sits "Mury". Written by Jacek Kaczmarski in 1978 to the melody of Lluís Llach's "L'Estaca" — itself a protest song aimed at Franco — it became the anthem of the Polish opposition through the 1980s. Jarre's version sets choir against electronics, and the crowd, unsurprisingly, knows every word. "Souvenir" carries recorded voices from the resistance of the Wałęsa era; the closing "Solidarnosc" is Oxygène 13.

Released in 2005, as a CD running about 48 minutes and as a DVD of the full 21-track concert with a behind-the-scenes documentary. The sleeve shows shipyard cranes, workers, and the wooden boards on which the 21 demands were written.