Jen sometimes has extra concert tickets, and I like going to concerts with Jen, and we didn't have anything going on on a Sunday night, so I was in for seeing Kraftwerk. I wouldn't have planned on the show because I’ve never been much familiar with the group, but I knew they were influential enough to be something I should know (and with the cred of having Kim Deal more excited to see them than play with the Pixies at Coachella). And it’s hard to come up with an excuse to pass on a Hollywood Bowl show on a summer night (and then so many friends and so much cheese beforehand). Every cool (almost cold), angular song seemed at least familiar, as most of their stuff has been appreciated and lauded then mined and swiped and sampled for longer than I’ve been alive, leading up to “Computer Love” which has been outright stolen by Kanye and Coldplay, just to name two (and my entry to the original, and more than one Google search to dig up what cover the newer acts were playing). The vaunted 3D aspect of the show could have been cheesy and even tired for any other group, surely not a component that would at all be necessary for a concert, but for them it worked. It was a visual for four German dudes who didn’t move from their synthesizers, without even the energy of a drum-kit, and making it extra-dimensional gave the show another level, and actually kinda cool to watch, though it could far too easily be overdone if everyone else wanted to try to make it work (and the paper glasses were a nice souvenir). I can’t tell if there was much deviation from the studio versions of the songs, especially when they could have had all the music tracked ahead of time, so I don't know what seeing them in concert had really done, save for being in their presence, but I can now say that I paid respect to our ancestors and heard the originals performed by the originals, who are still active and moving (except in concert) and iconic enough to get to play the Bowl a decade after their last recorded effort (or a generation and a half if that was considered a token)).
Kraftwerk’s set-list:
“Numbers“
“Computer World“
“Home Computer“
“Computer Love“
The Man-Machine“
“Spacelab“
“The Model“
“Neon Lights“
“Metropolis“
“Autobahn“
“Geiger Counter“
“Radioactivity“
“Electric Café“
“Tour de France“
“Tour de France Étape 1“
“Chrono“
“Tour de France Étape 2“
“Trans-Europe Express“
“The Robots”
“Aéro Dynamik“
“Planet of Visions“
“Boing Boom Tschak“
“Techno Pop“
“Musique Non Stop“
Sunday, September 18, 2016
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