Kraftwerk American dates? (there are two or three)

23 APR 04 TORONTO RICOH COLISEUM
24 APR 04 MONTREAL METROPOLIS
26 APR 04 SEATTLE PARAMOUNT
28 APR 04 SAN FRANCISCO WARFIELD

Stupid thunderstorms thwarted the last time I had a chance to see them at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in '98 and I want a second chance.

Thank you for choosing San Francisco.

they're not going to come to the east coast, are they. bastards. i can't tell you how tempted i am to go to seattle or SF to see them.

Which is why I'd hope for an individual show instead of Coachella, unless a miracle happens and it's a lineup I'd absolutely kill to go see for once.

HOOK ME UP!

Yes, Kraftwerk have always been a glaring omission from the Adamstacks, as I mentioned on the "incredibly famous bands that you have somehow never heard thread" yesterday.

If beggars could be choosers, I'd see them on their own, too.

So...all of the SF people are going (even if we are all jobless and/or poor), and it's something to get really excited about? Well then, I'm excited too!

Ditto. (On all counts.)

LCD Soundsystem is confirmed. So if this Pixies thing happens and Kraftwerk and Radiohead show up as rumoured ... it could be interesting. Or terrible! It could also be really terrible.

KRAFTWERK SEATTLE IS GO!

Hide the porn, I'm comin' to Seattle!

HAPPYHAPPYHAPPYHAPPYHAPPYHAPPY :)

I still need to work out getting a single-day Coachella pass here.

DIE ROBOTER WERDEN UNS TANZEN MACHEN!

(Dear lord, it's coming... I cannot wait)

1) Coliseum/arena/stadium concerts fucking SUCK. The people on the floor were barely dancing, and the people in the bleacher seats were just being annoying--getting up midway through to go get food, lighting up cigarettes despite it being non-smoking, screaming out requests at the top of their lungs (as if Kraftwerk were actually taking requests, even if they could hear your stupid ass from halfway across the venue over the crowd roar). Plus the woman beside me took off halfway through the show to grab nachos, and for the next 45 minutes as she ate them I kept smelling their raunchy odor, which smelled like liquefied SWEAT SOCKS. PREVIOUSLY WORN. I cannot think of any artist so amazing that I will subject myself to this type of venue again, especially since the acoustics weren't all that great. Bummer.

2) I don't know what was up, but the band appeared to be suffering through some pretty serious technical difficulties. Because the members all stand behind their workstations onstage, there isn't really much of a stageshow from the band themselves, so it was the visuals being beamed onto the white screen behind them that was carrying the visual element. Several times the video just failed; this was most upsetting during The Robots, where it was clearly out of sync with the music and the visuals, so for 5 to 10 minutes it was just the robots twisting around on the stage, which was a serious letdown.

3) The visuals (and the robots) were surprisingly primitive considering this is 2004. There were some really well-done visuals, like the spinning pills in behind the song "Vitamin", but they tended to be looped and repeated a lot, primitive or not. As my partner pointed out, if she'd been stoned it would have been amazing, but sober it was ...well, kinda boring.

4) The new mixes were pretty cool, though the steel drum sound in "The Model" was a bit strange. I couldn't tell whether they were trying to do surround sound at a couple of points, but for the most part the audio came from the stage, and a couple of times this bizarre ricochet sound started coming directly from the back; since it wasn't consistent, it's hard to tell whether those moments were intentional or what.

5) They confiscated my digital camera on the way into the venue. (Security, not Kraftwerk.) I have one really bad shot from my cell phone camera, but it's so bad I'm not even going to bother posting it. They also poured out my partner's water, which was extra special since the line-up for really hideously expensive bottles of water was so long she just didn't even bother. And since they were serving alcohol inside, it's quite clear that the only reason they did it was to make money from the water sales. Bastards! (Another reason I hate shows like this at venues like this.)

6)Even with all of the problems...well, it was still fucking KRAFTWERK, man. So I guess it's okay.

:) :) :) :) :)

You people in SF..... GO!

HAHAHAHA! That's GENIUS. Photos?

For hilarity, though, the Tron outfits were pretty hard to top.

Also, for the second encore, they had these mannequin/robots playing The Robots, which for some reason wasn't at full volume. Having never seen them before, I was pretty impressed with how well put together their show was. It was a great spectacle.

A guy a few feet in front of me managed to sneak in a digital video camera and boot the show, so somewhere out there in the future if not already, "Kraftwerk Seattle 042604" exists/will exist as an mpg or something like that.

For the robots thing, it's funny to know that it was a technical problem, because I went through an elaborate thought process to determine that it was, in fact, intentional, and a commentary of some kind. At that point in the show I was standing back by the soundboard, and I kept looking over at them thinking, "Why the hell don't they turn it up?" Since neither of the guys back there appeared to be in any sort of panic, I figured it must be intentional. But this irritated me, because I kept thinking, "This is a great bit, but it would be SO much better if it were LOUD."

The conclusion I came to was that it was sort of a jokey way of saying, "Yeah, our music is electronic and we use computers and sing about robots and stuff, but you still need US, these four actual humans, to make it all work. It's not as mechanized as we sometimes make it seem. These damn robots can't do this shit by themselves."

But, obviously, I over-thought it, and it WAS just a technical glitch. Although I guess that could be a kind of commentary on its own....

Despite the technical flaws and a surprisingly punchless "Pocket Calculator," the show was enjoyable and they played many of my favorite tracks (but, alas, no "Ruckzuck," "Von Himmel Hoch" or "Klingklang"--like they even were considering doing those). Shit, I even dropped $35 on that ill bicycling shirt.

Heh heh. It was really cool seeing Ralf sing.. especially when he slightly covered the headset mic in the middle of singing.. it was the most stylish motion of singing I have seen in a looooong time!

They did the cell phone thing in Toronto, too. You could see a sea of cell phone screens lit up on the floor area as people tried to capture a tiny little bit of the show...no doubt vainly, in that low light.

All the more reason to love it. Retrographics are infinitely cooler than some jerk showing off his skill at AfterEffects plug-ins.

Easily the best electronic show I've been to and I liked how it was mixed more like a pop concert than a bass-heavy rave.

No technical glitches that I noticed