Anyone going to any of the Kraftwerk gigs (UK) this week?

the laptop thing is interesting - they've honed their stage image to this minimal level dismissing the view of working with analogue equipment live - i don't mind this as i expect the tracks to sound great regardless of how they're being performed. plus they've mentioned before how they're more interested in music without the musicians in this live context, one step closer...

onstage movement was already extremely minimal & sequencer driven, I don't mind the move to laptops. I'm interested in whether they've done any further software-based retooling of the earlier material.

the '98 retool of 'numbers' was religious.

I'll let you know. I decided this one would be the most full-on.

the mac zealots will be sad to hear that kraftwerk use sony vaios though i'm suspicious as to whether they were actually switched on as when it faded to black between songs, there was no light emitting from them.

kraftwerk is and will always be hutter and schneider but the other two guys were actually doing a whole lot more than the previous other two guys used to do. one of them was controlling and manipulating all the drum tracks while the other one was doing some counter melodies to florian schneider's parts. he was also doing a lot of manipulation to the sounds too. he went a bit ott on the filtering at a couple of points. schneider was doing most of the singing and playing most (but not all) of the melodies. some of the melodies were on the backing track. i love the fact that he played a bum note at one point though i have a sneaky suspicion he did it on purpose. schneider was positively rocking out at points as opposed to hutter who might actually have been dead. this was weird as the other times i saw them, hutter was all smiles and full of movement. i honestly don't think he did anything all night except sing a few lines and jam a percussion break down. all four of them had a midi controller pedal but hutter and schneider each had another foot activated box which i think allowed them to pass control of the backing track to each other. the only time this was used was when hutter did his little jam. the rest of the time i think he was checking his email or watching pr0n.

anyway, that was the best i have ever seen them and the updated synth sounds were simply gorgeous as were some of the drum sounds (i could have done without the 909 bits though). the drum sounds on 'metal on metal' nearly made me wet myself. outstanding! the way it was synced to the video was poetry in motion.

my only real disappointment was that they didn't play 'spacelab' or 'computer love' and that they didn't bring out the pocket calculators on 'pocket calculator'. when hutter has done his hendrix pastiche in the past, it has been hilarious.

anyway, fantastic stuff, wouldn't have missed it for the world, and you have got to love the kraftwerk sense of humour.

that new intro to radioactivity was great, wasn't it? i had a lump in my throat at several points during the gig. those melodies do strange things to me.

"I'm the operator with my pocket calcula..tor....

Man those Kraftwerk dudes are seriously strange.. A good night though.
Cheers for sending the tickets .. I think ya would've liked it..

They played all the classics.. Man Machine, The Robots (With the working ACE Robots), Tour De France. etc.. Oh.. and daft costume changes which consisted of a flashing tie? and the crazy TRON-esk green suits!!!!"

bastard!!!

You callin' the 'werk gay, muthafucka?

Not that the Powerpointy aspects of it were a bad thing, though, not at all. Unlike the electric pyjamas at the end. Which were a bad thing.

can't wait, till saturday!!

Buy your Ralf & Florian t-shirts here.

Agree that Florian appears to do nothing, perhaps made most plain during Music NonStop when everyone else leaves Ralf to it and the sound doesn't really degrade by much...

Plus Phil Oakey was standing not 10 feet away during the entire show - which was perhaps exciting enough in itself. :-)

Wouldn't It Be Nice To Have The Cash?

they really should reissue those first three and get it over with. there are many times when the first one is the best thing they ever did. usually while I'm listening to it.

last night was of course superb. why do i always mix up Ralf and Florian? for the first encore when they all came back on stage Florian was last on and did an 'old man stagger' clutching his heart - the old jokester, it was quite endearing. also when they left the stage one by one as 'Musique Non Stop' climaxed he took a bow and ran off goblin-style, Fritz and Henning did a jaunty skip - leaving Ralf on his own to say 'goonight, see you in Brixton'. Ralf's vocals were good but his bopping towards the end was rather dad-like, again most endearing :)

the set iirc:

Intro
The Man Machine
Expo 2000 (remix)
Tour De France 03 (remix)
Vitamin
Tour De France (original)
Autobahn
The Model
Neon Lights
Sellafield (Radioactivity Intro)
Radioactivity
Trans Euro Express

Numbers
Computer World
It's More Fun To Compute/Homecomputer
Pocket Calculator

The Robots

Elektro-Kardiogramm
Aerodymanik
Boing Boom Tschak/Music Non-Stop

The set was the same as the one that steve went to on thurs i think. It was a strange gig to watch though. I'm not used to watching dance acts live anyway, where they hide behind a table full of buttons, it was a bit fustrating not being able to work out who played which parts, which is something I tend to do at live shows. But the video display made up for that I guess.

The robots were great too, especially how they weren't actually in sync, so ruining the effect a little.

Such a thighslapper he did it at the RFH as well...

Atmosphere in Brixton Academy not all that - it was a little unfocused, maybe owing to wide-open music-hall origins of the space. We got a couple of good clap-along bits going though. Autobahn --> Model --> Neon Lights is the perfect order, ending with a perfect song.

Worst I thought was Music Non-stop, just had no punch for me, and the video was uninspired.

Best vid bit was Trans-Europe Express, where the clattery metal noises synced up to train parts slamming into one another. It had a kind of juvenile silent-movie glee.

Some pics:

http://www.sleeve-notes.com/pics/kraftwerk1.jpg

http://www.sleeve-notes.com/pics/kraftwerk3.jpg

http://www.sleeve-notes.com/pics/kraftwerk4.jpg

http://www.sleeve-notes.com/pics/kraftwerk5.jpg

http://www.sleeve-notes.com/pics/kraftwerk6.jpg

-- DJ Mencap

it was that same RFH gig that i meant - Florian was disappointingly sombre on Saturday :( Tracer OTM all over except 'Music Non-Stop' totally kicks, and the video is the 1986 original, when wireframe faces were state of the fucking art meng

Gilbert and George / Ralf and Florian. G+G made their big international breakthrough in 1969 (or 1970?) via a performance at a gallery in where? Dusseldorf! It was of course their "Singing Sculpture" performance, which makes even more sense.

Oh yeah, I've just reread it... Ralf went a lot of the way to *making* it for me, when the rest of the band's movements are barely discernable (if you're about eight rows from the back like I was, at any rate) he was the one supplying that slightly jerky and out of sync humanity that's the overriding appeal about Kraftwerk. It's quite difficult to explain...

My enjoyment was somewhat spoiled by 'karaoke' Kraftwerk going on around me. Worst such moment was Tour de France (orig), which was greeted with 'der-der-der-der-da-da-di-der-der-der-dum-dum' every time the synth hook came round. Grrrr...

Oh and a hippy jigging and shouting 'Oh I love this one' and then singing whole chunks of The Model. Yikes.

it's this image that will stay with me forever (the red lights came on just as the looping synth melody chimes in on 'Man Machine') - but as Cis pointed out, Florian's 'jazz hands' dramatise the scene further, i don't remember seeing him move his hands at all tho - and it was funny when Fritz tried to ask him something and couldn't get his attention haha

Harvey's photies are grate...

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-haaaa...

What an astonishing show, though! I was kicking myself on the way out that I hadn't got tickets to the late show so I could watch them all over again. And just how great was 'Metal on Metal'?

Along with Ralf's mouth-cupping.

http://www.valand.gu.se/dm/students/andreas/kw_skivor/040208_swe/01_mm1.jpg

from Stockhold 2004, the rest of the show at this excellent site:
http://www.valand.gu.se/dm/students/andreas/kw_skivor/040208.html

As for Nik's hand-lifting pic... *ROTFL*

Follically challenged Florian always had me thinking of Max Schreck in the 1926 silent movie "Nosferatu". Gee, does anoyne possibly think Florian has heard this comment himself? that shadow play just tops it off! what a riot!!