KRAFTWERK ROAYL FESTIVAL HALL 18 MARCH 2004 (Sorry it took so long I have been moving house) Kraftwerk never do things the way other people do. That's one of the things that makes them legends. Not the only thing mind you. Their live performances, infrequent at best, are also the stuff of legend. The records, too. Elegant, sleek, timeless works of art that still sound like they come from 25 years in the future when they were made 25 years ago.
From the opening seconds of the cinematic, impressive "Man Machine", to the closing bars of the graceful, futuristic "Music Non Stop", this is the stuff of Legend. In a shroud of darkness, four massive black shilouette's are projected on a huge canvas that stretches up to the ceiling of the venue, echoing performance art from the thirties. And instantly one knows, that this is Kraftwerk. It's a statement of intent as dramatic as the opening seconds of Star Wars.
So this is An Event. A genuine, Hit-The-Headlines, front page news Event. It gets a page all of its own in The Evening Standard : something I've never seen for a performance by a band for which the phrase reclusive is generous. But Kraftwerk don't play live, by any stretch of the imagination. There is not second of analog sound in the entire set. Immobile, uniform, four anonymous, reticient German techno pensioners stand behind four tiny Sony VAIO laptops, surrounded by a massive projection screen, and occasionally one of them taps his leg. That's about as live as it gets. That's a legend live in front of your eyes. THE MAN MACHINE And despite their allegedly austere presentation, the minimal lack of communication to the audience and the determindedly synthetic nature of their music, there are few bands more human than Kraftwerk. For Kraftwerk are both the man and the machine. The soul inside the CPU. And its the little things that show just how human they are : the sly nod and glance at each other, the way a smile crawls up Ralf's face during some of the songs, the interaction between each member as they glance to each other surreptiously in the darkness. The tap of a leg. The wry smile. Sometimes the little things say so much more the big gestures. See, for all that everyone looks at Kraftwerk purely as Teutonic Ubergods of Techno, they fail to realise that Kraftwerk aren't just The Robots : every song is about the place where man and machine meet. Where man, nature, and technology interact. Without Kraftwerk, these aging fiftysomethings who somehow invented and defined electronic music, most of the music in the charts would still be tied to the limited palette of rock. And probably made by skinny white boys and girls. And it's a far better live show than any piece of stadium pompousity. Visually the presentation is stunning : a wall of images that dwarfs U2's Zoo TV Extravanganza. Kraftwerk present us a vision of the future the way we once saw it - both innocent and cynical- and also the way it might yet be. A vision of the future from years past. . Constantly evolving and mutating, drawing on child-like simplicity and an arch knowledge of classic futurism from across the ages. Images change from simple, playschool blocks of text, animated with a charming, playful naiveity, to retro-futurist images of what could've been. And it's still light years ahead of anyone else. THE MIX The set progresses at an assured, confident pace, as the next number, a dramatic reworking of "Expo 2000" is far beyond the capabilities of most bands half their age. After all, with the bands lynchpins Ralf & Florian totalling 115 years of age between them, they should, by now, be resting on their laurels, releasing greatest hits albums, performing no new material whatsoever, and generally being lazy, complacent robobastards. (which most of the time they are). Despite some claims, tonight isn't some nostalgia fest : at least a third of the set comes from their new album Tour De France Soundtracks, and almost the entire remainder of the set from 1991's radical rehaul album The Mix. . The new material they perform (about nine songs, if I remember correctly), effortlessly integrates into the established canon of classic tunes that shaped modern dance music. And the new material doesn't sound like the turgid final last gasp of the creatively bankrupt, but material that is wonderfully now. The three song, sidelong epic "Tour De France 2003 : Etape" melds seamlessly into "Chrono" and "Vitamin", and perhaps its part of the fun that Kraftwerk make cycling sound not only sexy, but also exciting. Thematically, the melding of man and machine in perfect harmony is as Kraftwerkian a concept as you can get. Where the gears of machines work in tandem with the finely honed muscles. THE BRITISH RESERVE But inside the sterile atmosphere of the Royal Festival Hall, this classic auditorium holding just 1,800 people, there's, at times, less than 1% of the audience dancing. Ok, well, maybe by the end, there's at best 30 people dancing in the small section in front of the stage, whilst 1770 people sit in their seats, passive, British. Venturing to the front of the stage is, in itself, an amazing experience. It's akin to watching Kraftwerk in your living room. Observing every last move and gesture by the band themselves. Seeing Henning trigger samples with his feet, or Ralf gently pick out melody lines on his keyboard when they're standing a matter of four feet away from you is a mindfuck. This must be what it's like to see The Beatles rehearse. Whats weird is when members of the band look down at you and wonder what exactly you're doing there, whilst they're powering through the colossal "Radioactivity". But they're doing amazing things to the song : the opening three or so minutes are a replica of the original, thirty year old lullaby to the power of FM radio, before the song suddenly turns itself inside out, shot through the arm, mutated into a rampaging beast of urgent, apocalyptic, techno : in some bizarre form of rhythmic meltdown. All you can see are enormous, simplistic graphics depicting atoms splitting off, reforming, exploding, in a way that makes it look all so innocuous, even though the graphics are detailing, scientifically, the release of energy that could eliminate mankind from the planet. As Lester Bangs rightly stated, Florian looks like someone who would destroy half of mankind by pressing a button and not even betray a shred of emotion. Die Mensch-Machine Semi Uber-Ding, indeed. You can't help but feel overwhelmed by the assault on the senses around you. You give in. You surrender to the music. Because, like the apocalypse, its out of your hands. TECHNO POP But its not just what they sound like (even if they sound the way that films of the distant past always envisaged the year 2001 would look: sleek, beautiful, perfect). It's the songs that they write : occupying the middle ground between classical theory and avant garde experimentalism, in a effortlessly dispatched, seamless performance. The kind of thing that will forever be maintained in history. But it's a case of sensory overload. Sound envelopes you, surrounds you. Images bombard you on a huge seamless screen that dominates your field of vision. The world outside Kraftwerk ceases to exist. DIE ROBOTER Sometimes even Kraftwerk themselves cease to exist. For the second encore, they don't even appear on stage. There's a ping. And a whosh. And the curtains part to reveal, not Kraftwerk themselves, but their electronic Robot doppelgangers, dancing in harmony like ballerina's, glancing from side to side, as the venue fills with irresistible rhythms, and massive projected text. Dancing mechanik. Functioning Automatik. Aerodynamik. It's an utter, utter subversion of everything you would expect from a concert. A piece of performance art with more balls than Elton John. And its nuts. It's like going to see, I dunno, U2, and them having a tribute band playing the encore. It's Nuts. By the final number, the epic recreation of "Music Non Stop", its increasingly obvious how human this band are. Each member takes turns for a discreet solo spot - Florian tweaking the sound effects, Fritz manipulating the rhythms to add a constant, ever fluctuating beat to the original, minimalistic track, and Henning bending the bass into all manner of unrecognisable, perverse shapes. And, as each member finishes his spot, a touching exit. Each member sprints to the side of the stage, takes a bow, and disappears into the darkness. It's almost the end. Henning darts from behind his keyboard, beams and waves at Ralf, and then takes a bow. And then its just us. Ralf, alone, on stage, a 58 year old German techno pensioner with a laptop, dress in a luminous green wireframe robot outfit and sunglasses, surrounded by Robots, like a child in a toy store. Dancing mechanik. So many bands just become hollow nostalgia acts, rotating ever changing lineups, anonymous additional musicians, redundant and cashing in on memories at overinflated £150-a-ticket costs., living in some kind of past, performing at best one or two songs from the past twenty years. Kraftwerk, despite being reclusive perfectionists, are still pushing forward, still exploring, still looking to the future. Not many bands deserve the status of being legends. But Kraftwerk are more than that. They are genius. Music. Non Stop. www.mark-reed.net www.mark-reed.blogspot.com