Kraftwerk, Düsseldorf, Germany, January 11-20 2013 – report

Fredrik “Schlatta” Svensson went to Düsseldorf to watch some of Kraftwerk’s 10 3D full album concerts in their own hometown. He came back with an interesting, detailed report, set lists and photos. He also met 3 out of 4 Kraftwerk members.

When Kraftwerk announced that they would repeat their New York MoMa 3D performances of their catalogue in their hometown Düsseldorf I had no hope of getting any tickets. Just like the MoMa performances, the concerts were sold out in minutes, but to my surprise a dear friend of mine somehow managed to get me tickets for no less than 3 of the concerts.

Each concert was based on one of Kraftwerk’s albums, including “The Mix”, totalling 8 different shows in and 10 performances (with dual shows of “Techno Pop” and “The Mix”). Since these concerts were in German, the lyrics and graphics were presented in German (where there is a German version available).

I got personalized tickets for “Techno Pop”, “The Mix” and “Tour de France” and the security surrounding the concert hall entrance proved to be tighter than the passport controls on my way to and back from Düsseldorf. If your ticket name and passport name didn’t match you’d be questioned by the guards and if you had a DSLR-camera, or any camera deemed professional, you’d be escorted to the cloak room by a guard. About there the strict control stopped, the overall mood and feel of the awaiting crowd was relaxed mixed with a bit of happy excitement, no wonder, Kraftwerk had not performed in Düsseldorf in 22 years. I asked several visitors about the capacity and got varying answers ranging from 600 to 1000 people, I reckon somewhere around 700 felt about right.

I arrived in Düsseldorf on the night of the “Computerwelt” concert and since I didn’t have a ticket for that show I wandered around town, passing Mintropstrasse 16 where the Kling Klang studio used to be located, and inevitably ended up outside K20 Kunstsamlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, where all shows were performed. I found a spot outside the auditorium where the sound from the concerts was fantastic and stayed there for an hour or so, freezing cold and it must have looked quite strange, but I don’t mind things like that. Afterwards I was rewarded by meeting three of the band members in the foyer. Ralf Hütter was nowhere to be found although some visitors later told me he had been signing autographs the previous days. Even Emil Schult and Wolfgang Flür and a few other Kraftwerk celebrities were spotted throughout the week of performanes.

The lineup of Kraftwerk has changed a little bit since the Way Out West performance I watched last summer. Stefan Pfaffe has been replaced on stage by animator Falk Grieffenhagen (probably the coolest name north, and south, of the equator). I managed to sneak (actually they let me inside but sneak sounds cooler) into the auditorium and it was about 15 metres wide and quite long; I’d guess almost 50 metres. The stage filled the entire width of the auditorium and so did the projection area behind the 4 machine stations. There were a compact front line array system floating near the stage, with side-fills, and at least 20 surround speakers distributed along the walls. The stage setup was minimal with 4 stations from where Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmidt, Fritz Hilpert and Falk Grieffenhagen (left to right as seen from the audience) honed their various skills. The workstations were painted light grey and were lined with LED-strips just like the stage itself.

For each of the shows all members of the audience were handed a pouch with a pair of 3D glasses and the pouch itself was made of paper and specifically design for each night using the respective album artwork. A future collector’s item for sure. Each night started with Kraftwerk performing more or less the album of the night in it’s entirety followed by a best-of part. This was very nice, but it meant that the total variation was somewhat limited since most of the albums included a few songs regarded as part of the best-of set. For instance, “The Man Machine” album was performed almost in total all nights.

For the first night with “Techno Pop” highlights for me were “Electric Café” and “Sex Objekt”. “Der Telefonanruf” was quite nice, but in a perfect world Karl Bartos would have made a guest appearance and sung the lyrics, in this instance no lyrics were sung at all, just the telephone call samples. Lately Kraftwerk shows always end with “Musique Non Stop” but since they played that in their album part of the show, the last song was “Planet der Visionen” and the band members left the stage together and not one by one as usual. Ralf Hütter did not say a single word during this concert, apart from singing the lyrics that is. After spending yet another fortune at the merch table again I went to get some sleep at the hotel.

For the second night with “The Mix” I really looked forward to “Taschenrechner”/“Dentaku” which were fantastic. Along with “Vitamin” this was the only songs not performed the day before. The sound in the auditorium was great, slightly booming, but nice. The mix was in surround and in some parts it was quite extreme as you couldn’t hear some melodies and samples all time if you weren’t really centred in the hall. But the sound was crisp and fairly loud without the need for earplugs. Also the 3D projections worked very well from the sounddesk and to about 10 meters from the stage where it deteriorated for some songs, whereas others only got better the closer you got to the stage, like “Vitamin” for me at least. The hall lighting was kept to a minimal, but focussed so the band never appeared dark. You could easily see facial expressions. Throughout the shows the band members had their updated “Expo” translucent clothes on and seemed to be happy with the performances. During “Musique Non Stop” each member has a section where he improvises and the other members actually “dance”; not dancing as we know it – what do you think, after all it’s Kraftwerk – but their swaying motion and appreciative smiles were quite funny to watch and felt strangely human and non-Kraftwerkian. This night the closing procedure was back to normal and Ralf ended the concert with a concise: “Gute nacht”.

The third night was the “Tour de France” night and totalled no less than 28 songs, albeit a few of them were grouped together in the album part making the various “Tour de France” bits floating into each other. It was nice to hear “La Forme”, “Titanium” and favourite “Elektro Kardiagramm” complemented by nice projections.

There were some small mistakes during the shows, like starting a second of one song after the ending of the previous and then stopping, that happened 2 nights in a row, which someone shouted out loud. Falk also managed to show a few milliseconds of the projections from “Der Telefonanruf” during the “The Mix” night. Ralf forgot a few lines and the start of one or two songs were, well weird to be kind. Then, Fritz and Henning, looked at each other laughing. But for me those minor hiccups didn’t do anything to anything to lessen the impression. It only shows that not everything is preprogramed and that the man machine Kraftwerk really is part machine but more importantly part man. Ralf ended the third night by wishing: “Auf Wiedersehen”. Yes, the next show for me will be “The Man Machine” at Tate Modern in London where they are doing it all over again, this time in English.

Setlist “Techno Pop”:
“Boing Boom Tschak”
“Techno Pop”
“Musique Non Stop”
“Electric Café”
“Der Telefonanruf”
“House Phone”
“Sex Objekt”
“Autobahn”
“Geigerzähler”
“Radioaktivität”
“Trans-Europa Express”
“Schaufensterpuppen”
“Die Roboter”
”Spacelab”
“Das Model”
”Neonlicht”
“Die Mensch-Maschine”
”Nummern”
“Computerwelt”
“Computerliebe”
“Heimcomputer”
“Tour de France 1983”
“Tour de France 2003”
“Expo 2000”
“Planet der Visionen”

Setlist “The Mix”:
“Die Roboter”
”Computerliebe”
“Taschenrechner”
“Dentaku”
“Autobahn”
“Geigerzähler”
“Radioaktivität”
“Trans-Europa Express”
“Spacelab”
“Das Model”
“Neonlicht”
“Die Mensch-Maschine”
“Nummern”
“Computerwelt”
“Heimcomputer”
“Tour de France 1983”
“Tour de France 2003”
“Vitamin”
“Expo 2000”
“Planet der Visionen”
“Electric Café”
“Boing Boom Tschak”
“Techno Pop”
“Musique Non Stop”

Setlist “Tour de France”:
“Prologue”
“Tour de France 1983”
“Tour de France 2003 (Étape 1)”
“Tour de France 2003 (Étape 3)”
“Chrono”
“Tour de France 2003 (Étape 2)”
“Vitamin”
“Aéro Dynamik”
“Titanium”
“Elektro Kardiogramm”
“La Forme”
“Régéneration”
“Autobahn”
“Geigerzähler”
“Radioaktivität”
“Trans-Europa Express”
“Die Roboter”
“Spacelab”
“Das Model”
“Die Mensch-Maschine”
“Nummern”
“Computerwelt”
“Computerliebe”
“Heimcomputer”
“Planet der Visionen”
“Boing Boom Tschak”
“Techno Pop”
“Musique Non Stop”

Photos by: Fredrik “Schlatta” Svensson