that looks like the line up in amsterdam.
We walked in and they were playing manmachine, just four guys, standing stiff
as hell, infront of a huge video projector.
When they droped trans-europe express I felt a shock go up my back, I knew I
was watching a piece of history. Also, numbers was another personal favorite.
Oh, and how classy is it to leave the stage to music non-stop. Like you are
supposed to take it with you...non-stop.
my brother and i hung out at the perfect spot. close to the stage, and a few
steps from the bar. Never an empty cup :) He was even rolling joints in the
dark, without a flat suface, and they were perfect.
Kraftwerk reprsented, the crowd loved it. probably my favorite concert ever.
-jason
On Sunday, March 28, 2004, at 11:12AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
For those who don't have the patience to read this in its entirety, here
is the simple review: holy motherf*ckn $hit, that was the best show
ever.
Playlist -
Mensch-Machine (Man Machine)
Expo2000 (with pieces of UR remix)
Tour de France 2003
Vitamin
Tour de France
Autobahn
Das Model (The Model)
Neon Lichten (Neon Lights)
Radioaktivitt (Radioactive)
Trans-Europa Express
---curtains---
Nummern (Numbers)
Computerwelt (Computerworld)
It's more fun to compute
Taschenrechner (Pocket Calculator)
---curtains---
Die Roboter (The Robots)
---curtains---
Electrokardiogramm
Aero Dynamik
Boing Boom Tschak
Musik Non-stop
-
We arrived at the Palladium just before Kraftwerk were to appear (they
started at exactly 23.59, with no opening act, etc.), and found a very
genuine mix of fans from teens to past middle-aged, and having never been
to a general concert in Germany since 1994, didn't know what to expect.
We found a nice spot to wait, and exactly on time, the lights dropped out,
and the stage with curtains was illuminated from behind with the shadows
of the group against a red light. The opening bit from Die Mensch Machine
(Man Machine) started playing, and the crowd reacted like you'd expect
them to - cheering and clapping. European crowds (IMO, of course) are
generally more appreciative, but I find they are also a bit more reserved,
and this was about exactly as expected. The group made little gyrations
of the arms in beat, and then the curtains sprung open to reveal them in
black suits with red dress shirts and black ties (like on the cover of Man
Machine), all standing in front of individual steel tables on single posts
(very futuristic, and akin to something found in 1984 or Brazil) with a
laptop each. The gigantic screen behind them was alight with very
primitive looking graphic boxes in red and black - mirroring the cover of
the record, and as the song started to get to the lyrics, the lyrics
flashed in time with the music - like subtitles. The sound was not fully
integrated with the venue (only stacked on edges of the stage), but not
only did the music sound extremely full, I noticed right away that they
had updated the classic tune with some extremely well processed drum kits,
and thusly the sound was very strong, and this edge would carry throughout
the night.
The underside of the enormous video screen (probably around 20 ft x 60 ft
[7m x 20m]) was bathed in red light, and red lights shown from the
overhead tower, and bathed the group's faces in red. After a few minutes,
the lyrics were switched from all German, to partially english, and the
vocals were added over the top, live.
After the lights dimmed to signify the end of the song, a bright green
light encompassed them, and the background video screen showed the
expo2000 logo, in basic green (almost like it was being created by an
argon laser) with no other colors. The chords started up for expo2000,
but after a few minutes, the vocals were still not added in. The Stephen
Hawking-like voice came in and started speaking in German about the 21st
century (like in the kling klang mix) and after a couple minutes the
background was a really neat visual display of fast green shapes being
stretched from right to left with really spatial effect. The kicker for
this song, was about midway through, the beat dropped out, and some very
flashy strings came in (and I realized that they were changing it up from
the original), and after a moment a vocal came in and said Detroit they
sold everything, Germany we sold everything, with the quirky synth line
from the UR remix (FYI the UR remix says Germany they sold everything,
Detroit (we) sold everything). A really nice nod to Detroit, and people
were much looser at this point than I expected. It's hard to describe in
words, the relatively static presence of the guys on stage, and the
feeling that the very precise visuals added to the music, and to the
crowd.
The green light dimmed, and was replaced by a static 4/4 beat and the
image on the video screen looked like a really large graphical EQ meter
with bars representing the 22 frequency zones. They started red, and as
the song picked up and the
