Words by Gordon Lamb and photographs by Mike White
For as much as Düsseldorf’s Kraftwerk has been casually designated as “futuristic” over the past five decades or so, there’s precious little stance-taking, forward-looking statements, or predictions in the group’s catalog, and the overwhelming bulk of Kraftwerk’s music is simply observant. So much of its observance is of the commonplace (highways, telephones, bicycles) that even the mere vocalization of these can seem like a celebration of them. That’s probably true to a point, too. As the band’s current lineup (co-founder Ralf Hütter being the only original member left) took the stage at precisely 8 p.m., it was clear that whatever they’d planned was going to take place cleanly, promptly and with the efficiency for which they are known.
While this current tour, officially named the Multimedia Tour 2025 – 50 Years of Autobahn, specifically name-checks the band’s 1974 album Autobahn, Kraftwerk only played its title song. Indeed, as far as song selection goes the band was generous and comfortably predictable. All the expected highlights (“The Model,” “Neon Lights,” “The Man-Machine,” “Trans-Europe Express,” “Tour de France,” “The Robots,” “Radioactivity,” et al) were present. The films and visuals presented as stage dressing seemed to be back-projected as nary a shadow was cast upon them. Also Kraftwerk’s whopper of a touring show a few years back, its 3D shows, were a phenomenal spectacle of such proportions that witnessing it pretty much left me pinned in my seat the whole time. This time around the group left the 3D behind, and in doing so, there was evidence for very brief moments that these robots are, indeed, human after all.
To wit, in the vocal for “Autobahn” Hütter fell just slightly behind the beat and “The Model” sounded noticeably slower than its recorded version. There were another couple of slowed-down moments, but nothing that really changed the experience and only of the sort that a pedantic record collector would even remember. That said, though, it was kind of nice to hear these variations if only to be reminded that not everything in this cynical world is completely pre-programmed.
Kraftwerk’s observations are never really stoic. They’re involved in the subject matter. And while they are not in the prediction business, their close observations often render them quite prescient (e.g. from 1981: “Interpol and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard/…Business, Numbers, Money, People/…Computer World” and from 1978: “We’re charging our battery/And now we’re full of energy/ We are the robots.”)
Attempting to review Kraftwerk’s exhibition of their music is chasing one’s tail. There is no real critique available, and any steadfast attempts at such is, at this point especially, just critical grandstanding and of no importance. All that can really be said with complete honesty is that Kraftwerk’s live show sets up its audience to also be a participatory observer. Whether this will lead through a portal to prescience is anyone’s guess but, as Kraftwerk has shown, there’s an entire world, and it’s full of even smaller worlds, each of which has nearly endless items to observe, craft one’s own world around, and think closely about.
Kraftwerk
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