photo taken from Henrik Larrson's excellent online collection of pictures
Went to the Kraftwerk concert in Toronto last night. My friend Andy and I chair-danced like dorks and tried not to elbow our staid neighbours, who were demurely toe-tapping and text-messaging the entire time. Upper Canadians might just be more reserved than Germans. Anyhow I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and the show was flipping great. The set was really perfect, the four guys and their machines framed by bands of light behind and below. I loved all the cycling footage during Tour de France. You can see the video here (scroll down). Autobahn portrayed nostalgic vacation illustrations from the heady days of early highway design, depicting the whole concept as a sort of cute, out-moded human project. That subtle (well .. subtle by Kraftwerk standards anyhow) ecological stance, juxtaposed against groovy, flesh and metal, fetish shots of cyclists, made it clear that bikes and computers are the cyborg partners of choice for these fellows. Vitamin also made a big visual impression: a field of trippy spinning pills like in Drugstore Cowboy and a great, simple wireframe animation of Alkaseltzer type fizzing action in a glass. Andy was pleased that they played Pocket Calculator, which he has been singing regularly, while making pokey finger motions, for at least the ten years that I've known him. The graphic was hilarious.... a big calculator with poking finger! Says Andy, "My god these guys are so literal." He's right, but they do it with gusto and it makes for a lot of fun. Thanks to Tom Moody, whose earlier Kratwerk post inspired me to go.
Note: afterwards we went down to the floor to check out the island of equipment. I didn't know what any of the machines were, but I do recognise a mitful of floppy disks when I see them. I asked the guy what on earth he had on floppies, and he, with a wry smile, said "lighting cues." Mysterious.
Senior Coconut has a good Kraftwerk album
Hey Sally,
Kraftwerk rocked last night. I got some pics too from last night although not as nice Henriks ...
http://www.web.net/~lukmar/KW04/KW04.html
http://www.web.net/~lukmar/KW04/Page1.html
Love live the red and black.
Mar(tino) those are great pics (I made your links live, for ease of viewing). Love your music nonstop shots. The animated wire frame men on screen behind the wireframe body suits, SO deadpan, all tapping their little toes in unison, had me laughing so hard I was crying. I hope they intend to be that funny, but they're savvy - I'm sure they know what they're doing.
Sorry for poaching one of your pics, but I feel its important that readers know what you were wearing last night. That's Tino on the left. He's a genuine German cyclist (and photographer) who will someday take up racing. The guy with the blue wristband is a genuine Canadian math genius, cyclist, and radical environmentalist named Todd and I don't know the other guy.
I was wondering about that picture. Thanks for ID'ing the men-machines. I always used to wonder how much of Kraftwerk was them being funny and how much was them being nerds but I now know they're being funny about being nerds. Also, they're ardent cyclists, particularly Ralf Hutter.
Thanks for the report and pics for us fans whose cities they didn't come to.
Thanks Sally.
The third one is Kevin McBride. Great Canadian painter and yes, cyclist.
It's more fun to ride bike.
what did you wind up wearing ?
black dress with fancy filmy zebra-print shirt. I was shooting for ladylike yet trippy.
Kraftwerk + Sense of Humour: the old Lester Bangs interview for Creem, where they cite The Stooges and The MC5 as their influences...
Actually they were serious about that, or half-serious: looking to minimal rock as a model rather than the airy fairy prog-rockers Bangs assumed them to be. They won him over with that interview--it was very entertaining.
Yeah, they're serious. Or half-serious. & that is what makes them so funny: a lotta artists have flirted with self-parody, but Kraftwerk have truly fine-tuned the concept.
But what I really enjoyed last week was being reminded of how exquisitely crafted their seemingly simple melodies unfolded...
I was hoping they would play 'Showroom Dummies', but...
|
photo taken from Henrik Larrson's excellent online collection of pictures
Went to the Kraftwerk concert in Toronto last night. My friend Andy and I chair-danced like dorks and tried not to elbow our staid neighbours, who were demurely toe-tapping and text-messaging the entire time. Upper Canadians might just be more reserved than Germans. Anyhow I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and the show was flipping great. The set was really perfect, the four guys and their machines framed by bands of light behind and below. I loved all the cycling footage during Tour de France. You can see the video here (scroll down). Autobahn portrayed nostalgic vacation illustrations from the heady days of early highway design, depicting the whole concept as a sort of cute, out-moded human project. That subtle (well .. subtle by Kraftwerk standards anyhow) ecological stance, juxtaposed against groovy, flesh and metal, fetish shots of cyclists, made it clear that bikes and computers are the cyborg partners of choice for these fellows. Vitamin also made a big visual impression: a field of trippy spinning pills like in Drugstore Cowboy and a great, simple wireframe animation of Alkaseltzer type fizzing action in a glass. Andy was pleased that they played Pocket Calculator, which he has been singing regularly, while making pokey finger motions, for at least the ten years that I've known him. The graphic was hilarious.... a big calculator with poking finger! Says Andy, "My god these guys are so literal." He's right, but they do it with gusto and it makes for a lot of fun. Thanks to Tom Moody, whose earlier Kratwerk post inspired me to go.
Note: afterwards we went down to the floor to check out the island of equipment. I didn't know what any of the machines were, but I do recognise a mitful of floppy disks when I see them. I asked the guy what on earth he had on floppies, and he, with a wry smile, said "lighting cues." Mysterious.
- sally mckay 4-24-2004 9:46 pm
Senior Coconut has a good Kraftwerk album
- Jennifer McMackon (guest) 4-25-2004 12:13 am
Hey Sally,
Kraftwerk rocked last night. I got some pics too from last night although not as nice Henriks ...
http://www.web.net/~lukmar/KW04/KW04.html
http://www.web.net/~lukmar/KW04/Page1.html
Love live the red and black.
- tino (guest) 4-25-2004 1:44 am
Mar(tino) those are great pics (I made your links live, for ease of viewing). Love your music nonstop shots. The animated wire frame men on screen behind the wireframe body suits, SO deadpan, all tapping their little toes in unison, had me laughing so hard I was crying. I hope they intend to be that funny, but they're savvy - I'm sure they know what they're doing.
Sorry for poaching one of your pics, but I feel its important that readers know what you were wearing last night. That's Tino on the left. He's a genuine German cyclist (and photographer) who will someday take up racing. The guy with the blue wristband is a genuine Canadian math genius, cyclist, and radical environmentalist named Todd and I don't know the other guy.
- sally mckay 4-25-2004 2:40 am
I was wondering about that picture. Thanks for ID'ing the men-machines. I always used to wonder how much of Kraftwerk was them being funny and how much was them being nerds but I now know they're being funny about being nerds. Also, they're ardent cyclists, particularly Ralf Hutter.
Thanks for the report and pics for us fans whose cities they didn't come to.
- tom moody 4-25-2004 3:03 am
Thanks Sally.
The third one is Kevin McBride. Great Canadian painter and yes, cyclist.
It's more fun to ride bike.
- tino (guest) 4-25-2004 4:25 am
what did you wind up wearing ?
- bill 4-25-2004 8:40 pm
black dress with fancy filmy zebra-print shirt. I was shooting for ladylike yet trippy.
- sally mckay 4-25-2004 8:53 pm
Kraftwerk + Sense of Humour: the old Lester Bangs interview for Creem, where they cite The Stooges and The MC5 as their influences...
- Von Bark (guest) 4-26-2004 2:57 am
Actually they were serious about that, or half-serious: looking to minimal rock as a model rather than the airy fairy prog-rockers Bangs assumed them to be. They won him over with that interview--it was very entertaining.
- tom moody 4-26-2004 3:58 am
Yeah, they're serious. Or half-serious. & that is what makes them so funny: a lotta artists have flirted with self-parody, but Kraftwerk have truly fine-tuned the concept.
But what I really enjoyed last week was being reminded of how exquisitely crafted their seemingly simple melodies unfolded...
I was hoping they would play 'Showroom Dummies', but...
- Von Bark (guest) 4-29-2004 3:40 am