Well, from the very outset the anticipation levels were certainly set pretty high for this gig. I’d been a fan of French downtempo/chillout duo Air for pretty much a decade, originally picking up their debut album Moon Safari back in ’98, when virtually every music mag going had tipped it as one of their top ten records of that year. While I’d spent the ensuing decade pretty much buying up all of Air’s subsequent albums, soundtracks and remixes for other artists. But despite the duo’s ubiquity amongst the electronic music scene, and repeated rumours, an Australian tour was something that would prove to be more elusive. While it seems strange that we’ve had to wait until 2008 for an Australian visit from Nicholas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel, the choice of venue – Sydney’s hallowed (and iconic) Opera House proved to be a perfect one, and indeed on this particular occasion, the main hall was used to spectacular effect.

It’s also probably the first ‘band’ concert I’ve been to in a long time where a polite bell was rung, theatre style, to warn you that the support act was about to start. While the imposing architecture threatens to dwarf Sally Seltmann’s three-piece live New Buffalo line-up, in this case it’s the quality of her songs that captures the attention of the reasonably-sized audience that have already found their seats. At points, her onstage delivery appears slightly tentative and almost apologetic, with Seltmann spending the majority of the set seated behind her keyboard, but the occasional lack of visual focus is more than made up for by the judicious use of ingenious electronic effects, sampled backing vocals and cello, resulting in an extremely astute choice of warm-up act. While it was slightly frustrating to see the amount of people who entered after New Buffalo had finished, Seltmann certainly appeared to win over the majority of the people who did catch her set.

After the obligatory hurried mass of road crew checking last minute adjustments to temperamental vintage synths, the lights go down and Air themselves emerge to an extended intro of pulsing purple light and ominous rumbling synth drones, with JB sliding behind a huge bank of analogue synths worthy of Jarre, while Godin – sporting some healthy facial growth these days alongside exactly the sort of “I just got back from playing golf” threads you’d expect Air to wear – indeed, white slacks seemed to be de rigeur for the five piece. After kicking off with Pocket Symphony’s opening track Space Maker, the majority of the first half of Air’s set leant predominantly upon their more recent material, with the vaguely Red Right Hand-esque slither of the most recent album’s Napalm Love slotting in alongside Talkie Walkie moments such as the floaty Venus and crowd favourite Cherry Blossom Girl.

Indeed when performed Run live, a track that I’d never really paid much attention to previously on Talkie Walkie, it took on a whole new life of its own, with Dunckel panning his treated (and weirdly high) vocals back and forth around the venue to disorienting effect. Air’s spectacular light show also proves to be suitably dazzling, blending a starfield-esque backdrop of pinpoint lights with a massive synth-synched bank of coloured bars, which pulses like the mothership out of Close Encounters in time with Dunckel’s every move.

As the set moves towards its second half, Air start deploying the hits and favourites, albeit with a beautiful sense of pace. An instrumental version of Playground Love from the duo’s soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides elicits a more than healthy round of applause, and that’s even before Godin steps up to the mike to deliver the 10,000 Hz Legend tune People In The City, easily one of the more straightforward vocal pop moments the five-piece perform tonight. Of that aforementioned record (my personal favourite), both Electronic Performers and the storming Don’t Be Light easily provide the biggest rock-ist gestures here, and indeed things get so squealing at points during the guitar flame-out section of the latter track that at points the acoustics threaten to get squashed into mush. Drummer Earl Harvin (Pet Shop Boys, Art Of Noise) also provides an astonishing amount of rhythmic muscle and precision right through the entire set, but at points I must confess that the excessive amounts of reverb being applied to his kit perhaps dominated proceedings a bit too much. Still, in the context of a performance this strong, it proves to be a minor quibble.

After thanking us for our support and explaining that Air wanted to share their tenth anniversary, Godin hops behind a vocoder and synth to lead the five-piece out with the classic one-two punch of Kelly Watch The Stars and a storming synth-growl laden version of Sexy Boy, before encore track La Femme De L’Argent gets stretched out to epic proportions, with the dazzling light bar accompaniment approaching epilepsy-triggering levels of intensity. And then – boom, it’s all over and goodbye. For those AIR fans who waited ten years, the first night of the duo’s two headlining Sydney shows certainly didn’t disappoint, with the increased intimacy afforded by the choice of venue working perfectly with the band’s keen sense of subtlety.