Kraftwerk 24/7

So, last night saw the final date of Kraftwerk's "minimum - maximum" tour 2005. Boy, did they ever deliver the goods to the packed Greek Theatre above LA. My friends and I were caught up in the parking situation, followed by a brief pause that refreshes in the forest on the way to the theatre, so we missed the first number. It was nice and loud, booming all around us, as we descended the hill towards the gate; very cool sensation to be walking around and hearing pretty loud, somewhat muffled electronic dance music in the air. Then, when the track ended and the crowd exploded into applause, we realized how loud and how close this spectacle really was. Impressive.

So we headed up to our seats and proceeded to be blown to bits by Kraftwerk's awesome catalog of crisp, cool tracks. Some of the melodic and lyrical content is such that you have to accept it as a joke (even though stuff like the b-side of "Elektrik Cafe" makes me doubt that these melodies are anything other than sincere) and enjoy the ride. They delivered an unabashedly honest performance. The fidelity of the audio system was breathtaking; I've never heard anything that loud and clear in an outdoor space so large, across the entire spectrum. Wow.

The show's pieces featured excellent visual accompaniment on film projector behind the band. The screen was a triptych (I know I spelled that incorrectly) but also consolidated into a single, ultrawide backdrop. Superb resolution. Tour de France featured some wonderful vintage black and white footage of bicycle races in the French countryside, towns, etc. Likewise Trans Europ Express had excellent film of the pretty 50s/60s TEE trains cruising through Germany; there was also a healthy serving of track-level footage filmed by a camera mounted low on the front of a train cruising through switches, etc. Wonderful. There was also some good "bahnhof" footage to bring back many memories of the Germany I visited in my youth. Of course, that wasn't the end of it... Autobahn provided footage of the German freeways, circa the 60's or thereabouts. Very nice. One could really appreciate the architectural purity of the system in those films. And the vintage computer graphics featured in the "Computer World" tracks and the closer, "Music Non Stop" were excellent.

These guys are great designers. They have command over the experience, fashioning as aesthetically pure an audiovisual experience as can be imagined. At their seasoned age, they are still capable of completely demolishing an audience, as they so deftly did at the packed Greek last night. It was cool, though; the four of them were clearly doing, on their Ableton Live-equipped laptops, something very similar to what Sasha's been doing with his Ableton/"maven" kit at his Fundacion parties in LA and NYC these past several months. As someone who attended every LA Fundacion night, I oughtta know.

But back to Kraftwerk: expect a DVD by Christmas if not sooner. It's already been announced on the band's record label web site. I think they were filming and recording the show last night for possible use in such a product... It was a flawlessly executed show, and under the stars, so unless they've already put together all the footage for the DVD, there's no reason not to use some from the Greek.

However, I had one gripe about the show: why change the title to "Music" non stop, rather than the old "Muzik" (or was it "Musique"?); wasn't the latter so much more satisfying, and more "Kraftwerk"? Not to mention truer to the pronunciation of the word by the computer-generated voice...

So today, the "minimum - maximum" 2CD set came out. Live recordings from the 2004 world tour. Pretty much what I heard last night (listening to it as I write). The booklet has stage shots for most all of the major theme tracks, including the "Tron"-like Music Non Stop. Yeah, I can't wait to see the DVD... Apparently, the group also released tracks from the CD on vinyl in Europe. And this stuff really does drop right nicely into any amalgam of new stuff, particularly the more prog-house material out there. Should be interesting to see whether any of these tracks find their way into any of the superDJs' boxes this summer or the compilations that will inevitably follow. Would've fit right in on Digweed's recent 'Fabric20' disc, for example...

I guess we'll have to be content to listen to the unmixed source for now, and cherish the memories of an excellently-spent evening under the stars.

Kraftwerk's web sites are www.kraftwerk.de and www.klingklang.de.