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introPalladium, Cologne, Germany
25th November 2015
Kraftwerk – 3D Show

With the 3D show the band toured several cities. On this evening the show took place at the Palladium in Cologne. The show, like all the others already before, was sold out and a very long queue was standing outside. As the tickets were personalised and checks took longer than usually it took a while to get in. Every visitor was handed a 3D glasses in an envelope with the bands logo. Needless to say that the place was really crowded.

The German band from Düsseldorf was founded in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. As pioneers of the Electro Pop genre KRAFTWERK gained worldwide success, inspired lots of band then and still nowadays. While with the first three albums the band could be seen as belonging to the Krautrock genre by using instruments like guitars, bass, cello, violin and drums, the founders decided in 1973 to produce only Electro Pop music. With the new technology the band revolutionised the auditive sensation. By using vocoders to distort the vocals and the sprechgesang in a completely emotionless way KRAFTWERK created the Mensch Maschine (man machine/ robot). This image was extended with their TV appearance in 1978 as living robots dressed uniformly in grey trousers, red shirts, black ties with sequencing red LEDs, presenting the new single ‘Robots’.

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While in the eighties the influence of the band’s style was quite obvious if you look at bands like DEPECHE MODE, ULTRAVOX, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, and many others, the band extended the Electro and Techno genre. Specifically for its great world tour the band have robots made that looked like the band members. These movable robots were also used for promotional purpose as well as for live appearances and videos. For the first time KRAFTWERK presented in 2011 a show with 3D animation. Since then the band tours successfully worldwide with this concept at sold out shows. There were some changes in band members. The actual line-up is: Ralf Hütter, Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz and Falk Grieffenhagen. 14 critically acclaimed albums were launched. Their singles entered the charts worldwide. KRAFTWERK got in 2014 the lifetime achievement award. http://www.kraftwerk.com / https://www.facebook.com/KraftwerkOfficial/

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Music & Performance
Since it took much longer until all fans could enter the venue, the show started about 30 minutes later than announced. But finally, the band entered the stage and anyone was uniformly dressed in diving suite like black outfits with white lines in square shape. Depending on the colour of the light these lines glowed in a different colour. The four guys were standing behind kind of work desks that were framed with LEDs, changing their colours as well. All of them barely moved or did it in a slow way and thus underlined the image of the man machine. But later with the progression of the show you got the impression that some of them couldn’t hold their horses and moved a bit to the rhythm proving not to be machines after all. The 3D animation was really impressive with some cool effects and one or the other was rewarded with applause, especially the flight over the Rhine - well, at least the parts that I could see. But actually I would have preferred to see such a show in a seated venue as it was really hard to have a good look at the stage. If you are not tall and in a location being that packed doesn’t make it any easier. Most of the songs merged into another but whenever there was a short pause the audience gave the band a thunderous applause.

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The audience was mainly at my age and older but I also spotted some nearly teenager age kids. The main show contained 20 songs but the audience shouted for an encore. For the first one the robots took place behind the desks, performing ‘Die Roboter’. But of course this short encore was not enough and for the next one the human band was back on stage performing further five songs. At the last song one after the other left the stage under big applauses while the remaining continued playing. It was definitely a fantastic show but personally I decided that if I have the chance to see KRAFTWERK live again, I will only go to a seated show. There was too much unrest in the audience with a steady coming and going, pushing to the front and squeezing that you could hardly focus on video animation which is quite annoying as the show lives from the visual effects.

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Setlist
01. Nummern
02. Computerwelt
03. Heimcomputer
04. Computerliebe
05. Die Mensch- Maschine
06. Spacelab
07. Das Modell
08. Neonlicht
09. Autobahn
10. Ätherwellen
11. Geigerzähler
12. Radioaktivität
13. La Forme
14. Electric Café
15. Tour de France 1983
16. Tour de France Étape 2
17. Tour de France 2003
18. Trans Europa Express
19. Metall auf Metall
20. Abzug
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21. Die Roboter
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22. Aéro Dynamik
23. Planet der Visionen
24. Boing Boom Tschak
25. Techno Pop
26. Music non stop

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 9
Light: 7
Total: 9 / 10

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All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com / http://www.facebook.com/blackcatnet)

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