Wow - I'd forgotten about that. Thanks!
CPLT is really quite special. Without the the canvas of buildings, via a mega backdrop of vertical skyscrapers or a horizontal panorama of buildings (e.g. PLD, Houston, Lyon) so much attention was on the stage. It was the last time in my opinion that combination of theatrical puppets, set-piece LAG synths, choir and orchestra all came together to such amazing effect. Chrono Pt 3 was the best. And JMJ's beret was super cool!
Watching this brings back a combination of good and bad memories: I was a student in France in 1995, studying in Grenoble on a three month UK-French exchange. I was there start of June through to end of August. There was the ON/OFF news about Hotel des Invalides as the convert venue. I was getting the postal bulletins from Conductor of the Masses magazine sent to me, and I thought "Wow! I could be in France when there is a JMJ mega concert! If it's on, I must go!" This was all not quite pre-internet and email and I had no mobile phone meaning so much was guess work.
I then I hear the concert is OFF, and 14th July is getting closer and me and the students down in the Alps plan to attend the celebrations in Grenoble instead. So I decide to stay put. Then word reaches me it's ON again, but now at Champs des Mars. Too late to arrange accommodation in Paris. Do I just blow a chunk of my student grant on a return TGV ticket, pull an all-nighter and go to Paris for 24 hrs?
I stay in Grenoble and have a great time in the city. Next day, I go buy the national papers and see the photos and then Gala magazine published colour photos a few days later, and back home, my mum tapes the UK TV broadcast onto a VHS tape for me. It all looks and sounds amazing and I was just a train ride away! I was so annoyed.
Even now, 25 years later, NOT being there, when I was so close, wakes me up at night