"I mean, their playing 90% the same songs of the 1981 tour - and still
all their concerts are sold out. People who go to a Kraftwerk-concert
know what they will see - no new songs, but 'new designed' old songs -
plus a new stage since 2002 - and still people go crazy. The 1997 Linze
concert was the best concert I ever visited. It was simply magic.
It's like a favourite film you have - you watch it again and again, know
every scene, every sentence. That's what Kraftwerk makes so different,
so timeless, so unique."
(new to the list btw)
Essentially that's what I felt after seeing both shows last Thursday. To be
honest I don't really care whether they play any new material. It was great
to hear them paying homage to Detroit with the UR mix of Expo 2000 -
(Henning(?)_ looked like he was really enjoying that track), although I do
think that the reworking of Airwaves leaves a little bit to be desired
amongst other contemporary material being released today. Kraftwerk have
moved into a different area of musical appreciation, in that their music
will, as always, sound timeless. Given the surroundings of the concert on
Thursday, it was much more like a classical music concert and this feeling
can only have been enforced by the sheer crispness of the sound. Man
Machine and Tour de France sound so perfect together, the first a warning to
the Nietzschean ideal of ubermensch, and then Tour de France, epitomising
the ultimate synthesis of man and machine together. And then we get
Autobahn....irony and humour have never been put so beautifully in
contemporary music.
