Last night's Karl Bartos show in London C/D?

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Did anyone here attend this show? Any views?

― harveyw (harveyw), Thursday, 23 October 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought it was wonderful. Though they should have played the full nine minutes of Neon Lights. Still, to hear all those wonderful Man Machine/Comp World/Technopop tunes loud & live was a true joy. Hey, he co-wrote 'em, y'know!!
The newer songs sounded pretty great too; should I buy some Electric Music/solo LPs?

― harveyw (harveyw), Thursday, 23 October 2003 09:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Hi Harvey

Lucky you! What was his stage set/backing band like? I'm fascinated. I saw post-Bartos/Flur Kraftwerk in '92, promoting The Mix - one of the best gigs I've ever attended.

― Jez (Jez), Thursday, 23 October 2003 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

The line up was Karl on singing & synthesisers with one other fella on extra synths & a guy stage right in charge of the visuals (actually on stage with VT machines, computers, vision mixer etc). Two large projection screens at the rear of the stage (some very good video work), it rather lacked the coherence of the Kraftwerk shows I've attended, but was conterbalanced by the joie-de-vivre of those melodies. Y'know: Computer Love...tunes don't get any better, really. There were moments when it felt a little "Mike Pender's Searchers", but so what?
I was a little disappointed by the Mix-era show I saw; it was almost exactly the same as the one I saw in 1981 (which is still probably the best live show I've seen), but slightly less clunky. Last night was reassuringly (virtual) analogue & clunky. There are rumours a-plenty of some UK Kraftwerk shows early next year (the Japanese dates of a world tour have already been announced), and I'd imagine there wouldn't be a clunk in the whole set. Basically whoever happens to be in the Kraftwerk line up these days just stands on stage for 2 hours playing with a laptop. Crazy guys.

― harveyw (harveyw), Thursday, 23 October 2003 10:13 (twenty-two years ago)

When I saw Kraftwerk in January, some wag behind me remarked to his friend that they were using said laptops to send emails. Hur hur. But I digress. What a show!

― Damian (Damian), Thursday, 23 October 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw the concert in glasgow there was not very many people there and hardly any of them were girls but it was still good.

― c rooney, Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, it's Wolfgang Flur that gets all the girls... ;-)

― kate (kate), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:16 (twenty-two years ago)

... according to Wolfgang Flur that is

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:17 (twenty-two years ago)

they used to tease old wolfgangbang about his success

― c rooney (c rooney), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

When I saw Kraftwerk in January, some wag behind me remarked to his friend that they were using said laptops to send emails.

Similar stories abound regarding Chris Lowe/Vince Clarke/Dr Alex Patterson watching EastEnders/Coronation St/Teletext/etc - anyone know if there's any truth in this?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:29 (twenty-two years ago)

The best of those kinds of stories is about Rick Wakeman of Yes ordering a curry and eating it during a Bill Bruford drum symphony or sumthin'.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 23 October 2003 12:32 (twenty-two years ago)

But that Rick Wakeman story is true - I had an old biography of his which tells the tale.

It was the "Tales from topographic oceans" tour and during one interminable song, Rick mouthed to his keyboard roadie - who sat under the stage keeping his Moogs in tune - that he fancied a curry later. Said roadie mishears and disappears for fifteen minutes, returning with a big bag of curry, rice, popadums, bhahis etc, which Rick proceeds to eat during a drum solo. Chris Squier was annoyed about it at the time, but Jon Anderson enjoyed it so much he came over and shared a popadum and bhaji.

(It didn't help that Rick was the only non-veggie in the band at the time so he couldn't really share the chicken vindaloo with the others).

Sorry, X-post again.

― Rob M (Rob M), Thursday, 23 October 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I only have the first elektric music album, 'esperanto'. much of the production (and the lyrics) are just the other side of cheese for me. except at the very end, there's one song, 'overdrive', that is exactly to the letter what kraftwerk should have sounded like in the early 90's. atonal, catchy, weird trance pop. for me it's good enough to justify the cost of the entire album.

modest hopes for the new one but there's no real way around me buying it I fear.

that wolfgang flur book is one funny trainwreck. 'I'll never forget that night with her, locked together alone on the tour bus; she was so beautiful, though now I can't even remember her name... anyways, we then recorded Radioactivity somewhere around this time...'

― (Jon L), Thursday, 23 October 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I just found the Bartos CD Communication in the used place the other day, and was very surprised...first of all because it was under his own name and secondly because I wasn't expecting it at all. It's a great package design, and the music isn't as embarassing as I thought it would be...definitely too much reliance on the robot voice but it's far more melodic and commercial than Kraftwerk while not veering too far into cheese.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 28 October 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Milton wrote: 'I only have the first elektric music album, 'esperanto'. much of the production (and the lyrics) are just the other side of cheese for
me. except at the very end, there's one song, 'overdrive', that is exactly to the letter what kraftwerk should have sounded like in the
early 90's. atonal, catchy, weird trance pop. for me it's good enough to justify the cost of the entire album.'

Milton, so many people have told me that. It's a great track, a clear indicator as you say for where KW should have gone at the time, and it's buried at the end of a cheesy album. But you can still play that one in the clubs to a techno crowd and they'll go nuts and ask what it is.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 28 October 2003 21:07 (twenty-two years ago)

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