Kraftwerk 14th June 2017
Added by Musik Arbeiter Dave on 21-Jun-17
This is the extended version of the review I did for Electronic Sound Magazine. This original version is here.
I’ve been somewhat pre-occupied of late, adrift in an electronic world of burnished chrome and circuit boards, accompanied by synthetic beats and vocoded vocals.
Daydreaming, I'm suddenly thrown back in time. It’s seven o’clock on a Thursday night in 1975 because that’s when the BBC's late and much lamented Tomorrow’s World takes to the air. It’s a heady melange of gizmos and gadgets and all manner of strange and wonderful ideas, and nothing ever works as it's supposed to, which is part of its charm. And this evening is no exception. Tonight, the programme features a weird bunch of Germans who make and play their own musical instruments out of bits of abandoned radio sets and discarded electronics. 'They got rid of their last proper musical instrument, a violin, last year' opines the commentator. 'Next year, they say they'll get rid of the keyboards too, and replace them with contacts built into their lapels.'
Weird.
And I am hooked. Completely.
This is why I do what I do. Kraftwerk.
One Friday morning, a lifetime ago, I bunked off work, painfully bleating 'I don’t feel very well' to an unbelieving world. Truthfully, nobody in the office bought that miserable whinge for one femtosecond. They knew I wasn’t going to the GP’s surgery. They knew I was going to stand in a queue for tickets to see Kraftwerk. Deadlines? Schmedlines.
But that was a lifetime ago.
We arrive at the venue early. Parking around the Sage in Gateshead isn't always easy. Two balding men in their late fifties pull up in the Disabled bay next to us. One of them feigns an unconvincing limp as he hobbles towards the stage door. We'll come back to this guy in a couple of seconds.
A longish queue snakes down the steps and into the main car park but at least its moving quickly. A few less-than-subtle comments are fired off in our direction because Jenny and I are wearing our Musik-Arbeiter outfits, all red and black and polished leather, which seemed like a good idea at the time but, with hindsight...
Extra security is on hand, where serious men with serious beards check our bags and photo IDs in an attempt to eliminate the problem of ticket touts and deranged bombers. Once inside, there’s a bit of confusion over the need for the 3D glasses, with some of our fellow punters fussing over their apparent lack of futuristic styling. Strange.
Standing in the foyer, I can see the guy with the limp hovering outside... except that he doesn't seem to have a limp anymore. Indeed, he seems fairly athletic in his earnest attempts to avoid the house security. Yes, you guessed it. This guy with the limp is a ticket-tout and he doesn't seem to be having much luck getting rid of his expensive tickets. In fact, I don't think he's going to succeed at all because security have him tagged.
This is our first visit to the Main Hall at The Sage. We’re off to one side, in a box with decent leg room although we’re also at a slight angle to the stage, which pretty much guarantees a stiff neck tomorrow. The main seating area looks hopelessly cramped.
There’s a low drone playing, accompanied by some flickering, pixelated graphics across the main curtain.
Eventually, the lights go down, the music starts and Kraftwerk take to the stage accompanied by a huge roar from the audience. The ever-impassive Mr. Hutter smiles, albeit briefly.
The opening piece is a version of Numbers backed by some of the best 3D images I’ve ever seen. Shimmering green waves of rapidly shifting number sequences remind you of The Matrix, except that Kraftwerk did it first and they did it thirty five years ago.
Numbers gives way to Computer World and the melancholic Computer Love – that beautifully sombre poem to love and isolation in a digital utopia. The audience erupts over the opening chords of The Model with Hutter’s impassioned vocals still suggesting a level of infatuation on a par with your average Mylie Cyrus fanboy.
Kraftwerk move in quick succession through their back catalogue. Tour de France and the accompanying video projection are just mesmerising. It’s the same with Autobahn.
There’s a break. The band leave the stage but are quickly replaced by their synthetic avatars. We are the Robots blasts forth. Robots is definitely one of the highlights, another being Spacelab, which was similarly breathtaking.
Despite all of the technological trappings and the carefully disguised digital mysteries hidden behind the dull grey instrument risers, this music has soul. It has energy. It also possesses a gleeful, tongue-in-cheek humanity because Kraftwerk are clearly enjoying themselves. This isn’t four uber-serious computer geeks perched behind laptops earnestly miming to a backing tape. There are mistakes – fluffed notes, missed cues and timing glitches. I positively warm to this lack of precision in Kraftwerk’s machine-like subroutine. Is this a tiny chink in their shiny, metal exterior? Are Kraftwerk human after all?
Yes, they are, and all the better for it.
We leave the hall in a daze. En route to the exit, we bump into friends from our University days, Jane and Mitch, friends we didn't even know were Kraftwerk fans at all.
Outside in the car park I see flashguns popping. On instinct, I grab the first paper thing that comes to hand – my copy of Electronic Sound magazine, the one with Kraftwerk on the front cover. I head over to the stage door and suddenly find myself face to face with Mr. Ralf Hutter. Like an eager-beaver teenage fan-boy, I stuff the magazine under his nose. I haven’t seen this issue yet? says Mr. Hutter as he signs the front cover.
This is one issue that is getting framed and hung on a wall.
