I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 6, 2025] Kraftwerk

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 a 3-D tour celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2022.

It was fantastic.

The four members stood in front of these tiny platforms and played their electronic music while visuals were projected behind them.  In the previous show, we had 3-D glasses, but they were not used for this show.

I couldn’t believe how crowded it was when I arrived.  I’m used to arriving a few minutes before the opening act and having my pick of location.  But there was no opening act.  I even arrive earlier than usual, but the place was packed!  I was in the middle behind some really tall dudes and then I decided to move to the side.  At a weird angle, but pretty close.  Last time I couldn’t really see the humans, so it was neat being up close to be able to see them a little.

But it also came with the consequence of a lot of people around me talking.  There were drunk college women, of course, but there was something even worse.  A pretentious Kraftwerk fan and he wouldn’t shut the hell up about how great everything they were doing was.  While it was happening!  Lucklily most of the music was loud enough that it mostly drowned him out, but ugh.

Kraftwerk is the same line us as when I saw them three years ago.  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.

The set list was almost exactly the same as last time.  Which was fine.  The lights went down and a series of green numbers appeared on the screen behind them and on the scrolling lights beneath their four podiums.   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.

From this distance I could see that (most) of the vocals were sung by Ralf Hütter.  Some of the voices were preprogrammed clearly, but he was sing/speaking most of the lyrics.

But this show is all about the music and the visuals (not the vocals).  The music sounded great.  Someone on line asked what the point of seeing them live was.  And I can see the question–it’s not like they are going t0 bust out an original jam session.  But the answer someone gave was to hear this music on an amazing sound system.  And that was 100% true.

I have since looked up what everyone is doing onstage.  From my location, I could see Ralf moving his hands to make certain sounds happen.  As I understand it (from people online), the other guys do some kind of drum programming, some kind of sequencing, and the guy on the far side coordinates the videos.  How much is “live” I do not know.

The visuals were the same as last time:  Totally lo-tech, 8 -bit style graphics.  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.

Tour de France showed black and white footage of an old Tour de France race.  The Model showed black and white footage of models–presumably famous, but not to me.

There was a group of college kids around me who were having a lot of fun.  Although they decided it was hilarious to scream at the top of their lungs at the end of each song.  Not cheer, but actually scream.  It wasn’t especially irritating, just weird.  And i though they were just there to say they were there.  But when they started Autobahn, they all knew it and were really excited..  The visuals for Autobahn were hilariously low tech with 8 bit cars driving on a flat road and occasional zooming in on the interiors of the vehicles.

When they played Radioactivity, the crowd cheered wildly for Harrisburg, which is pretty dark.  It was far more fun during Spacelab, when they flew a UFO on screen that landed in Philadelphia (thanks Google maps) and then right in front of Franklin Music Hall.

They played one song that they didn’t play last time–La Forme (although I feel like maybe it was played last time, too?–They tend to throw clips of songs into medleys so it’s not always clear what full songs are being played).

After a fantastic Trans Europe Express, they left the stage.  They returned moments later to play The Robots.

Last time, they had actual robots on stage to play the song (hilariously showing that no humans were needed).   They didn’t do that this time.  Online reviews say tht it has something to do with the venue and their ability to do whatever the need to do.  We were the first sto on the tour, so I don’t know if there are no robots.  It was a little bit of a bummer since that’s such a fun part of the show, but the song is great even with humans on stage.

They did not play Pocket Calculator (which proved to be my favorite unknown to me song of the night last time).  But that’s fine.  Vecause they did end with Boing Boom Tschak and Music Non Stop–perfect endings to a really fun show.

I probably don’t need to see them again, but it was fun to see them a second time.