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Kraftwerk are still going strong
The bell in the bar at Cirkus rang and it was time to enter the parquet. A mechanical voice introduced the band and silhouettes of four persons behind four workstations were visible on the curtain in front of the stage. The stomach pounding beats of Man Machine started and the curtains opened. Four distinguished older men appeared wearing black suits, red shirts and black ties, all of them turning knobs, except for Florian Schneider who was stroking the keys of a synthesizer. The back of the stage was covered with a huge screen, showing the classical Man Machine projections in red, white and black. Also the podium where the men were standing on, glowed in red. All of it was an overwhelming experience both visual and audio.
The concert continued with the more house beats of Euro 2000, followed by one Etape from Tour de France and Vitamin. These songs were the least interesting of all songs and my geist was slowly fading. Then the tunes of Tour de France started and everything was ok again! The sound got more retro with the songs Autobahn, Das Model, Neonlights, Radioactivity and Trans Europe Express. Fortunately they were not overmixed with beats, and a lot of the feeling from those albums and the melodies of the songs were still there.
After the first pause Ralf Hütter and Co came out with glowing diodes on their ties and eins, zwei, drei, vier, the Nummern started. The other songs Computer World, Home Computer and Pocket Calculator, all from the same album, followed. Until this moment, the quartet of Kraftwerk have been standing still behind their workstations, while the films and glowing colour of the podium and lower part of the screen, changed for each song. However after the second pause, the four gentlemen were replaced by four robots - and guess to which song – The Robots. The arms, head and hips of the robots moved to the music and followed symmetrical patterns.
The last act after the third pause contained three songs: Elektro Kardiogramm, Aero Dynamik and finally Music Non Stop. The four men were back on stage, but now with black body suits covered with illuminating vertical and horizontal stripes. When the final tunes of Music Non Stop sounded, each of them left the stage, starting with Ralf Hütter, followed by Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz, and last Florian Schneider.
/Robert Eklind
The photos are shown courtesy of Fredrik Forsström. Here you'll find more photos from the concert.
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Trans Europe Express
Tour de France
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