Kraftwerk - gig series (Feb 2013) @ Tate Modern

[colacubes]

Still


Just tried that number - disengaged signal - they must have cut it off...... Been trying to get through since this morning

Bums

 

[strange-fish]

Exactly...I shall persevere whilst drinking tea and eating mince pies

On the bright side I have tickets for Eccentronic Research Council with Maxine Peake .... ho hum......

 

[DJ Squelch]

All sold out now.

 

[moose]

I only know 3 people who got them on the phone, and 5 who went in person to the very place they were adamant tickets wouldn't be sold.
It won't be as good as Manchester was, anyway

 

[Hollis]

Status Quo tickets for Wembley Arena are still available.

 

[colacubes]

I went last night to Radio Activity. It was genuinely one of the most incredible gigs I have been to. Easily top 5. The sound was amazing, and they really played with the acoustics of the turbine hall with speakers in different places and the sound bouncing around. Then there were the incredible 3D visuals. They worked with the music perfectly and managed to straddle the line between totally futuristic and retro (for instance the 3D computer in some of the songs looked like it was something out of a Bond film c 1960).

Plus, they played all the greatest hits as well. All of them. We were discussing how on earth they were going to make a 35 minute album last 2 hours before we went in, and now we know Once the gig started none of the 4 people in my party said a word to each other as we were all so overawed and immersed in the whole experience. I was a bit credit card happy when I bought the tickets and felt a bit guilty beforehand, but tbh I would have paid double now I've seen it.

If any of you have tickets for the remaining concerts you are lucky lucky bastards.

 

[killer b]

 

[colacubes]

Sorry

 

[belboid]

great review of an earlier gig by Wolfgang Flür

http://thequietus.com/articles/11330-wolfgang-flur-kraftwerk

 

[Dr. Furface]

great review of an earlier gig by Wolfgang Flür

http://thequietus.com/articles/11330-wolfgang-flur-kraftwerk

I enjoyed Flur's book, but that musta been 10 years ago and it's been over 30 years now since he was last 'a robot', so his sniping and bitching are a bit tiresome now.

I went to the show last night and it was mostly excellent, though I was a little disappointed with some of the Trans Europe Express material, particularly Europe Endless, which they hadn't bothered doing any decent visuals for. TEE was last night's album - my favourite - but they seemed to want to get through it as quick as possible to get to Autobahn (which was overly long) and the Man Machine stuff, which was great, as was the Computer World material. Tour de France was great too, but disappointingly they only did that one track and nothing else off the album. The sound was brilliant throughout and so were the visuals, though some worked better than others.

The other disappointment was that they didn't have the robots on stage, unlike when I saw them a few years back at Brixton Academy, when they were one of the highlights of the show. On the whole I think I preferred that Brixton show, it was more of a proper gig and felt more vital (admittedly that was helped by my being on some good ecstasy - sadly last night all I was on was Magners cider, and at £5 a can I didn't have much of that either!). On the whole I'd give last night 8/10, while that Brixton show was about as close to perfection as it gets.

 

[brogdale]

I went last night to Radio Activity. It was genuinely one of the most incredible gigs I have been to. Easily top 5. The sound was amazing, and they really played with the acoustics of the turbine hall with speakers in different places and the sound bouncing around. Then there were the incredible 3D visuals. They worked with the music perfectly and managed to straddle the line between totally futuristic and retro (for instance the 3D computer in some of the songs looked like it was something out of a Bond film c 1960).

Plus, they played all the greatest hits as well. All of them. We were discussing how on earth they were going to make a 35 minute album last 2 hours before we went in, and now we know Once the gig started none of the 4 people in my party said a word to each other as we were all so overawed and immersed in the whole experience. I was a bit credit card happy when I bought the tickets and felt a bit guilty beforehand, but tbh I would have paid double now I've seen it.

If any of you have tickets for the remaining concerts you are lucky lucky bastards.

V jealous; sounds really impressive.

Apologies if this has been up before, but it might be an appropriate time to remind ourselves of where it all began for Kraftwerk. Who knows, like me some of the older 'greybacks' might remember watching this edition back in 1976?

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

I enjoyed Flur's book, but that musta been 10 years ago and it's been over 30 years now since he was last 'a robot', so his sniping and bitching are a bit tiresome now.

Not quite - he left in 1987. I think he makes a valid point about Florian. When Florian left that was the end of Kraftwerk for me, the relationship between Hutter and Schneider defined everything about the band. Hutter plus rentacrowd is a bit embarrassing IMHO.

 

[Dr. Furface]

Not quite - he left in 1987. I think he makes a valid point about Florian. When Florian left that was the end of Kraftwerk for me, the relationship between Hutter and Schneider defined everything about the band. Hutter plus rentacrowd is a bit embarrassing IMHO.

If Schneider's involvement matters so much to you, then that's fine and it's your choice of course. But for me, and obviously many others too, it makes little to no difference. You don't go to a Kraftwerk gig to see what whacky things they're gonna do or say, do you? As Simon Price said in his review "With such an enormous screen behind them, it's easy to forget that there are four men standing behind synthesisers. Only one was a member of the line-up who recorded Radio-Activity. Since the departure of Florian Schneider in 2008, Hutter is the sole original, filling the spare berths with technicians who might as well be Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. Some long-time fans refer to this incarnation as "Ralfwerk". There's only one solution: Ralf must be fired, and this show must be sent on a never-ending world tour, manned by showroom dummies and updated by new custodians with each new technological advance. You want the "Cybernetic Inevitable"? There it is."

All I'll say is that I'm old enough to have seen them in their early days (and I did have the records) but wasn't able to, so it was great to finally get the chance to see em at Brixton a few years back, and I'm really glad I did - it was brilliant. And even though I was slightly less blown away by their Tate show, I'd rather have been there than not been there.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

If Schneider's involvement matters so much to you, then that's fine and it's your choice of course. But for me, and obviously many others too, it makes little to no difference.

Clearly the case after the rush for tickets - and I'm sure everyone who got to go had a good night according to the reports. But did they see Kraftwerk? You obviously think they did. If so then anybody who goes to see Macca in concert can claim to have seen the Beatles.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Clearly the case after the rush for tickets - and I'm sure everyone who got to go had a good night according to the reports. But did they see Kraftwerk? You obviously think they did. If so then anybody who goes to see Macca in concert can claim to have seen the Beatles.

Really? Then I saw the Beatles play at Glastonbury several years back.