I was living in Houston, working as a R&D engineer for Schlumberger (an oil service company), when Jean-Michel Jarre did his huge concert, "Rendez-vous Houston", on the skyscrapers of downtown Houston in the night of Saturday April 5, 1986.
The concert was to be best seen from the west side of downtown. Together with my photographer friend George O Jackson Jr, we organized all the logistics to go and shoot it. We determined an excellent viewpoint on a bridge (on Montrose Blvd?) in Sabine Park, a long and narrow patch of trees and grass stretching west of downtown from Sam Houston's Park. We packed "El Mañifico", the old Cadillac of George O, with cameras, cold drinks, smokes and food, and parked it in the morning on that bridge. That was a smart move: end of the afternoon, when we went to the location with our friends, the whole place was packed: we had to park miles away and walk to our spot, where our cold drinks were awaiting us!
During this concert, astronaut Ron McNair, a friend of JM Jarre, was to play the saxophone from space during the track "Last Rendez-Vous" tune. Unfortunately, the Space Shuttle Challenger which he embaked exploded 73 seconds after take-off. Ron McNair died in the accident. He was replaced for the concert by Houston native Kirk Whalum.
This concert held a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest "rock concert" in history, with 1 to 1.5 million people attending, taking over from Jarre's concert in Paris La Concorde (1979). It later lost its place for Jarre's Paris La Défense Concert in 1990 (2.5 million people).
Following the concert, a photo contest was organized by Jarre. George O's photos won the first prize, and one of his photos made it on the official commemorative poster of the concert. Thanks to that, I go to meet Jean-Michel Jarre, as well as his beautiful wife Charlotte Rampling, in George O's magnificent apartment located the Parklane building's 24th floor overlooking Houston's skyline. Jean-Michel Jarre saw my photos as well and liked them too. From there on, Jarre invited George O Jackson and I to shoot his following mega-concerts.
Here are a few of my photos of "Rendez-vous Houston" that I managed to retrieve and digitize - for you to enjoy!
Click on a photo to enlarge it.
