Destination Docklands

The two Docklands concerts, known as Destination Docklands, took place in London's docks after long negotiations and a great deal of back-and-forth with the local authorities.

The docks were chosen as the setting for the launch of Jarre's album Revolutions, a work whose industrial themes echoed the history of the Docklands themselves. Originally scheduled for September, the concerts were finally held on 8 and 9 October 1988, and the weather proved typically British, with driving rain and strong winds. Even so, tickets sold out within a few hours, and around 200,000 people attended across the two nights.

Jarre, his musicians, a choir and an orchestra performed on a stage built on a 1,000-ton floating barge moored in the Royal Victoria Dock, joined by special guest Hank Marvin of The Shadows. For two evenings, this bleak corner of the city was transformed into a futuristic, multimedia industrial theatre, uniting Jarre's electronic music and vision with the stark landscape of the Docklands in perfect, psychedelic harmony.