I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: June 18, 2022] Kraftwerk 3-D [rescheduled after July 30, 2020 cancellation]

Kraftwerk are one of the most influential bands of all time–and most people don’t know them.  They created electronic music and have been sampled hundreds of times.

I never even considered that I would see them live.  And then they announced this 3-D tour celebrating their 50th anniversary!

My understanding of their live shows was that the four members would stand on stage in front of these tint platforms and play their electronic music and that was pretty much it.  So the 3-D component sounded like an interesting addition.

Normally I wouldn’t want to see a band that wasn’t full of original members. Kraftwerk really only has one–Ralf Hütter is the only guy still in the band from the beginning.  Of the other three, Fritz Hilpert has been on board since 1987, Henning Schmitz since 1991 and Falk Grieffenhagen since 2012.  Florian Schneider another co-founder just died in 2020, but he had left the band twelve years ago.  So while they aren’t original guys, the four have been together long enough to count as Kraftwerk for sure.

I was bummed when the whole tour was cancelled for COVID.  But here it was, two years later (52nd anniversary) rescheduled and ready to go–no doubt unchanged in any way.

S. came with me and our friends L and E were supposed to come, but they didn’t feel comfortable coming out in public just yet.  So it was just the two of us.  I thought it would be more fun to sit in the balcony and experience the 3-D in a big widescreen as opposed to sitting up close (What was there to see them do anyway?)

We were running late, but thankfully they started a little late.  And after we used the bathroom (so nice that the Met has barely used bathrooms upstairs), we grabbed our 3-D glasses (YES!) and took our seats, waiting for the bleeps and bloops.

The lights went down and a series of green numbers appeared on the screen and came at us in 3D!

The four guys came out to their podiums wearing tight black bodysuits with grid patterns on them.  It was futuristic if this was 1980.  Which was perfect.  It was also crazy to think of this 80 year old guy in a black body suit.  But it all worked.

Because the rest of the theater was dark, it wasn’t even clear if the four guys were actually doing anything up there.  They were certainly moving their hands, but it was impossible to know what they were creating.  The music sounded great–as you would expect.  And the vocals seemed like they might be live–but they were mostly spoken and/or in another language.

It really wasn’t until almost the end of the show, during the encore of “Pocket Calculator” that I was aware that the vocals were all being delivered live by Ralf Hütter.  The visuals were brighter and when I zoomed in the video him, I could see his mouth moving along.  Fascinating!

So what were the visual?

They were largely lo tech.  If there were words in the songs, the words floated around: Interpol Deutsche Bank, FBI CIA KGB; Man, Machine (with graphics like the album.

There were sine waves and other abstract shapes.

Some of the more interesting ones were for Tour de France, which showed black and white footage of and old Tour de France race.  And The Model which showed black and white footage of models.  I don’t think either of these had 3-D treatment, but that’s okay.

Trans-Europe Express had a low tech visual of trains driving at us and the sounds matched the visuals (like a doppler effect) which was pretty neat.  I was happy that they played Autobahn.  The visuals for that were hilariously low tech with 8 bit cars driving and pans in on the interiors of the vehicles.

There was a dark moment during Radioactivity where they listed cities in different languages where nuclear accidents had occurred.  Kraftwerk has always commented on man and technology and this is one of their more pointed songs about it.

But the most fun video was Spacelab where we floated through space, in a kind of proto-Google maps.  Eventually the maps resolved themselves into a UFO that landed in front of the MET.

Before the last song, the stage went dark and the song The Robots began.  No one was at the podium.  On screen there were images of robots.  And when the screen lifted, there were robots at the podiums.  They moved in jerky motions, clearly not doing anything–the entire song was prerecorded–a hilarious production.

There were many songs I didn’t know and I particularly enjoyed the encore song Boing Boom Tschak and the words that soared at us in 3D.

As the show ended, each band member did a little “solo” on his podium. He demonstrated a little bit of the sounds that he was generating and then he walked to the side of the stage and bowed.   The last one was Ralf.  It a was wonderfully human moment.

And a terrific show.

SETLIST

1. Meine Damen und Herren [tapes intro]

1. Numbers ™/ Computer World  ™/ Computer World 2 ™
2. It’s More Fun to Compute ™/ Home Computer ™
3. Spacelab ϖ
4. Airwaves ® / Tango
5. The Man-Machine ϖ
6. Electric Café €
7. Autobahn ∇
8. Computer Love ™
9. The Model ϖ
10. Neon Lights ϖ
11. Geiger Counter ®/ Radioactivity ®
12. Tour de France £ / Étape 1 £ / Chrono £ / Prologue £ / Étape 2 £
13. Trans Europe Express ‰ / Abzug ‰ / Metal on Metal ‰
14. The Robots ϖ / Robotronik
    Encore
15. Planet of Visions ≅
16. Pocket Calculator ™
17. Non Stop € / Boing Boom Tschak € / Music Non Stop €