From Che Sent Mon, Jun 8th 1998, 04:08
From Che Sent Mon, Jun 8th 1998, 04:08
Just got back from the Warfield, where I was wowed by the long awaited return of Kraftwerk. The show started promptly, so if you're going to one of the later shows, be sure to show up early. And no, there was no opening act, so get off it already. The stage had 4 workstations arranged in a shallow V pointed at the audience, with 2 men on either side. Ralf was on the right end, Florian on the left. One of them has a shaved head now, I'm guessing Ralf, and will refer to him as such for the rest of this review, even though I've never been able to tell them apart, which is odd because one of them is taller & has a bigger head, though I know I'm not the only one with this difficulty. Florian had a headset mic. It was easy to see under & behind the workstations, where there was a long arc of equipment consoles stretching across the stage. At the top of these consoles were bright white lights, at the bottom a rainbow strip of flourescent or cold cathode lamps. A buddy tried to identify equipment - he spotted four Kawai K-5000 synths, a Raveolution, and a DA-88, but there was a lot more. We couldn't couldn't see what sort of control surface was on the workstations; most of the motions I saw looked like slider pushing & pulling, with some button punching and a little key playing. The show started with Numbers, large numbers flashing on the video screens, I spent this track getting used to the sound, the venue, and the realization that I was seeing & hearing Kraftwerk live. Next up was Home Computer, which was fairly true to t he original, though the bass & drums were kickin'. Then came The Man Machine, which mixed English & German lyrics, which were shown in monochrome on the videos. Tour De France was the song I most wanted to hear, and I wasn't disappointed. This was a pretty straight version of the achingly beautiful original. Black & white footage of an old tour de france was shown. Next I heard car sounds, and I knew it was Autobahn, which was a faithful, albeit shortened version. Vintage cars were shown, along with pictures of the Autobahn, and their new Autobahn logo. Then came The Model, another old style version (though when I say this, I mean that the drum programming hadn't been modernized to sound like The Mix, even if the drum sounds were beefier). Vintage black & white footage of fashion models was shown. Next came a radically reworked version of Airwaves off of "Radioactivity". This was a fantastic update of a song which I always felt could be better. Now it is. Great job guys! Radioactivity was next, with updated lyrics to include Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and other nuclear disasters. It sounded more like the version off The Mix. Finally came Trance Europe Express, still a juggernaut. Yes, vintage trains filled the screens. With that, the curtains closed, ************* SPOILER ************* If you're going to a later show, do yourself a favor and exit this message right now, ok? Otherwise page down... The curtains opened to the lads, erm, old men standing in front of their consoles holding remotes. Yes! It was Pocket Calculator. Unfortunately Ralf had some problems with his, but he was a real trooper and made funny gestures with it, swinging it around like Roger Daltrey wiith a mic, to the delight of the crowd, until one of the others got it working again. Then he jammed on it, to the further delite of the crowd. Then the curtains closed, and there was again much applause. Then the curtains opened again on a black light set, with everyone wearing suits with dayglo yellow stripes and wraparound dayglo shades. They launched into a ravey number which was new. I found this to be a little disappointing, because even though it featured some nice tweaky modular sounding synth work, overall it sounded like Kraftwerk following rather than leading. All my musician friends were convinced that they let their hair down and improvised a bit on this track. The curtains closed again, to much applause, then opened again, to the video screens lowering, which revealed The Robots! For me, this was the highlight. The lighting was fantastic, lots of strobes & bottom lighting which made the robots seem to move more than they actually did. This version was much like The Mix version, and it was excellent. I wish the robots had stayed to perform more numbers. Finally, the video screens raised up to cover the robots, the guys returned to the stage, and began Music Non-Stop. Videos of the animated graphics from Electric Cafe were shown, with the wireframes of the band echoing the stripes on the band's suits. I could tell they were having more technical problems, because there were things shown in the video that weren't echoed in the music. One by one they left the stage, and I sensed that this was the last song. Apparently I went to a different Kraftwerk show than Joe Rice, or maybe I was just paying attention. First, there was only one new song. I'm guessing that Joe didn't recognize "Airwaves", even though the lyrics & main melody were the same as the original. Secondly, the show did have live playing and there was improvisation. Where the hell were you during "Pocket Calculator" Joe? Didn't you notice that after Ralf got his remote controller working, he made a point of playing a LOT of unscripted noises (which seemed to piss off Florian, though the crowd loved it)? Didn't you pay attention during the new track? Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this show, even if it was horribly retro for me. At least all the songs were updated in one form or another. All the black & white film footage just accentuated the retro feeling. And Ralf & Florian looked old - that was really weird. At least Florian seemed to loosen up & enjoy himself in a few places. I just wish they'd get up the nerve to release some truly new material - it's been way too long. Che