In the past I've made the comment that the departure of Chris Franke from the German group Tangerine Dream seems to have been the start of their severe decline. Tonight I was listening the TD album East, a 2004 CD of a 1990 concert in what had just ceased to be East Berlin with the fall of the Berlin Wall 3 months earlier. The material on this live album seems to confirm that impression. Other than a few relatively brief places the album is on the whole bland, and could be any new age/smooth instrumentals group of the era. Its interesting to compare this with a live show from 3 years earlier in Berlin that I have on an mp3 I downloaded from someplace. That show was lots more interesting, with the interesting parts overshadowing the blandness that had already started to trouble the group. The 1987 concert was Chris Franke's last as member of the group, and the 1990 show seems to indicate how much of an impact he had on the sound of Tangerine Dream. Interestingly this history claims Franke and Froese have had only the most minimal of contact since Franke quit, making me suspect there must have been some major rupture between the two that lead to Franke's departure.