Daiana Feuer on June 27th, 2017

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How many keyboards does it take to perform an Air song? As witnessed Sunday evening at the Greek Theatre, at least six. Since Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel made a point to use different synthesizers and sounds for each album, they had to bring the whole collection on this tour celebrating Air’s 20th birthday.

There were more than a dozen amazing keyboards on stage. Two for Godin, who also handled guitar and bass, and the rest were split between Dunckel and a very busy man in the shadows who remained nameless. But boy was he working. Opening song “Venus”was a mellow, romantic number that moves at a relaxed, robotic pace, but he was flipping back and forth at his station like his pancakes were on fire. Some of the time — a lot of the time — it was impossible to discern which synth and whose hand was creating the syrupy soup of sounds bubbling from the stage, only to get swept up by a unique tone jumping out of the mix like a meteor blazing across your brain.

In the late 1990s, when all their French friends were making house music, this duo decided to do something else, creating electro-pop lullabies that landed on debut EP “Premiers Symptômes” in 1997, followed soon after by the album, “Moon Safari,” another six studio records, a soundtrack or two, and last year’s best-of, “Twentyears.” They called themselves “Amour, Imagination, Rêve,” that’s “love, imagination, dream,” and many fans have since used their music to soundtrack such activities. Even at the show, during “Playground Love,” a couple two rows in front of me stood up to slow dance and kiss, but got so tied up in their tongue-action, they couldn’t keep up the dancing part and just made out very intensely for a long minute.

That tune comes from “The Virgin Suicides” soundtrack that Air penned for Sofia Coppola’s film of the same name, but much of the set pulled material from “Talkie Walkie,” thought to be their most pop record. “Run” was a treat, as Dunckel pulled off the stone-faced repetition of singular words like a machine. “People In The City” was another highlight, not only because I was almost certain he was saying “big bird in the city,” despite knowing that wasn’t the case.

Throughout the show, whenever things were quiet, the audience made sure to scream out that they would not be going home without receiving “Sexy Boy” (off “Moon Safari”). The guys finally delivered it during the encore, right after bringing Beck, Jason Falkner, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Brian Kehew, Roger Manning, and Brian Reitzell on stage for “How Does It Make You Feel?” — a reunion 17 years in the making, as several of them were part of the original recording.

With three screens lit up like windows behind them, the way colors rolling up and down gave the effect of being in an spaceship elevator. The slower down-tempo numbers were reminiscent of a melody that might hum through your mind on repeat, except elaborated into a symphony of retro-futuristic synth and vocoder. It was particularly cool to see Godin pull out a banjo for “Alpha Beta Gaga,” which originally featured a shamisen, if you like that kind of factoid.

Setlist: “Venus” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Don’t Be Light” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Cherry Blossom Girl” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “J’ai Dormi” from “Premiers Symptômes” (1997), “Remember” from “Kelly Watch The Stars” single (1998), “Playground Love” from “The Virgin Suicides” (2000), “People In The City” from “10 000 Hz Legend” (2001), “Radian” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Alpha Beta Gaga” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Run” from “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Talisman” from “Moon Safari” (1998), “Alone In Kyoto” “Talkie Walkie” (2004), “Kelly Watch The Stars” from “Moon Safari” (1998). Encore: “How Does It Make You Feel” from “10 000 Hz Legend” (2001), “Sexy Boy” from “Moon Safari” (1998), “La Femme D’Argent” from “Moon Safari” (1998)

Photos by Matt Rea, courtesy of the Greek Theatre