Tribes. We all supposed to have one or to be in one. Within a sporting context like cricket, football or rugby that’s easy: you support your team and that’s it, you don’t go and support a rival team a few weeks later. Music however throws up a whole load of different options and emotions. Most of my friends see the endless black T-shirts and think I’m a rock fan, yet I run mainly listening to blues, I’ve seen OMD (more on them later) more times than I can recall and have a fair amount of reggae in my album collection.
Which is the long way of explaining that on a hot evening in Wolverhampton I’m standing in a long queue of similarly middle aged people, with a fair smattering of either their children or a younger fan base, to see Kraftwerk who fit firmly into the prog or electronica tribe. Weird hey?
Staring with the pounding ‘Numbers’ the stark backdrop behind the four artists bursts into life and throughout the show it’s a dizzying blaze of ever changing colours and shapes. The setlist is little changed from the last dozen tours, although the four are now wearing LED suits that flash in sync with the backdrop. ‘Computer World’ is foretelling the rise of technology in our lives before ‘Spacelab’ brings a cheer form the audience as Wolverhampton and the Civic Hall are pinpointed on a map of the country. A slightly truncated ‘Autobahn’ is where my first experience of Kraftwerk started when Fluff Freeman played it one Saturday afternoon on Radio1. A very long time ago!
‘The Model’ is the nearest that Kraftwerk get to a traditional pop song and it’s clear to see why Andy McCluskey of OMD fame cites the band as an influence. In a very rare moment of emotion Ralf Hütter steps into the spotlight to pay tribute Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom he struck up a friendship when Kraftwerk influenced his band Japan. To a blank backdrop they play ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ from the film and then move through ‘Radioactivity’ warning of the dangers of nuclear power before the one-two of Tour de France and Trans-Europe Express.
‘Boing Boom Tschak/Techno Pop’ has a driving techno beat that Darude or Josh Wink would be proud of, which wraps up the show. Except that there is now one final twist, after 30 seconds the band come back on stage to play ‘The Robots’ instead of actually letting the robots do the work!
It seems incredible that after 56 years, four largely static middle aged/elderly men can make two hours pass so quickly, so enjoyably. That’s Kraftwerk.
