Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 02:32:30 EDT
From: <Ultravox5@aol.com>
Subject: (kw) WARFIELD showJust got home....it was incredible.......fantastic.....
But, having said that....with the exception of the post CW songs and some
changes(minor) with the videos,it was almost identical to 1981 at the Santa
Monica Civic....But don't misunderstand, I loved every second!!!!
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 00:12 -0700
From: chrism@bbn.hp.com
Subject: (kw) mail from ROBOT!! SPOILER ALERT!!!!!=SPOILER ALERT=!!
*WhooOOP-WhooOOP*
ROBOT's Konzert Review (Warfield, SF):
Overall, it was EXcellent and FUN!! There was ONE totally hysterical glitch. Poor Florian! His Calculator wasn't WERKing during most of the tune. -(sorry, I'll stand in the MIDDLE next time and spead out my love/feedback more evenly*blush*)- So, he made the best of it and clowned around with it. First he was shocked, kept punching buttons, exchanged worried glances with the others, looked at the audience and shrugged- the audience laughed WITH him, not AT him- then he shook it, "strangled" it, swung it up and caught it, mimed a few punch-button/spasm moves -(oh, God, YES!)-, kept clowning, Ralf & Henning & Fritz were smiling, etc- and FINALLY it WERKed! YAY! Applause/cheers! They finished the song with pinache`. True ROBO-Troopers! The ROBOTS performed flawlessly, btw. -(good thing I had the rail to hang on to!*SPAZZZ*!)- There were some out-of-synch sequences, but, overall the SOUND was GOOD. I was in front of Florian to the right, and it still sounded fairly well ballanced,!
!
although Ralf's voice needed to be turned up a bit. -(JBV said he sounded better in Tokyo. I thought he sounded nice. Just quiet. Jet lag.)- Another neat-0 surprise: they were wearing shiny black zip-up mock turtleneck shirts at first, and they turned a deep RED/Burgandy when the red lights hit 'em on RADIOAKTIVITY. I'm sure someone else with a clear(er) head can quote the track list. M.M was half English/half German. Very nice! The 2 new tracks were very impressive *LIVE*- they sounded much more complete. The sound files on the net don't do them justice. I'm sorry- I know this is all jumbled and out of chronological order. I just wanted to tell the highlights while it's fresh on what's left of my brain. The crowd was VERY enthusiastic- full 2 hour gig with a couple short breaks. Our beloved heroes made their customary exits 1 by 1 and disappeared into the San Fransisco fog. l They're probably on a red-eye 1/2 way to LAX by now. See ya tomorrow at the Palladium, boys! :]incident'ly, it rained/drizzled a bit. Christoph & I arrived around 3 and only 2 people were there before us- since NOON. The line didn't get long til 6pm. Doors opened at 7, show started about 8:15. The pre-bleeps were NICE! :]
okay- I'm gonna forget stuff- I'll have to fill in later. It will be interesting to compare with tomorrow's gig.*SIGH* Yes, it was WORTH waiting 20 years for. I was not the least bit disappointed. There was a certain "familiarity" -(from videos)- to calm me down just a tiny bit. In fact, I expected KW to be more "sedate", -(they were pretty still at first, but not "boring")- however, I honestly didn't expect The ROBOTS and RA to be so ovedrwhelming! Those LIGHTS!! The sudden BRIGHTNESS- The VIBES!! It totally kicks @$$!! Lord almighty! The Ultimate K-gasm!!*OOOMPH*!! I cried HAPPY tears throughout the Konzert- then sad tears 'cause it was over. BUT- I get to do it again tomorrow! I'm up for it. I want it EVery night!! FOREVER!! And EVER!! HALLELUJAH!!
I'm gonna have some wild dreams tonight!*OOooWEEE*! Thank you, Christoph, for letting me type this! Thanks to EVERYone who helped make this wonderful dream cum true!! -(I lost count....)- *SIGH*
[ROBOT out- till Thursday the 11th- unless I find a convenient CyberCafe in LA]
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:18:20 -0700
From: "robot" <robot@humboldt1.com>
Subject: (kw) The Agony & The EcstacyNote- I began typing this when I first got home at 5am. Then I stashed
it in "drafts" and started reading the posts. I KNOW this is TOO LONG,
but, I really must express this. Everyone's saying how great the
Palladium was- where WERE you people?? In the BACK?? I couldn't SEE or
HEAR a damn THING!! The Performance was FINE, from what others tell
me- but, I was in no posistion to get full enjoyment from it. The
place REEKS. Especially security.First of all: No, I did NOT hug FLORIAN!! -(except in my dreams)-
Where are you people getting these rumors? Will you knock it off
already? It KILLS me that it's NOT TRUE!! All I did was shake his hand
and talk to him briefly. I didn't drool on him or anything. Jeeeez.
I'm sorry if this upsets anybody, but, I'm telling it like it is.
Seeing/meeting KW was great, but, you have NO clue what hell I went
through on this trip. Will somebody PLEASE shoot me *NOW* and put me
OUT of my misery?!! If you don't want to hear it, just delete this
message and move on.If anybody's curious:
Okay, I just got home- "safe" but not in one piece. Warfield was
EXcellent, but, the Palladium SUCKED! -(I don't mean the
performance.)- Some people say the accoustics were better in back, and
supposedly the sequences and things ran more smoothly than at
Warfield. I wouldn't know. I couldn't see anything but Florian. Okay,
I could live with that. Actually, if I really twisted my neck, I could
see a glimpse of the others one at a time. The MusiK needed to be
louder- atleast from my vantage point. I was in roughly the same
position as in Warfield, but, not against the rail, and a tiny bit
closer to center. In any case, I am NEVER going to ANY show there ever
again. There were too many bad things spoiling it. Nazi
security -(bitch made me go "hide {my} pins in the bushes". I think
not. Another guy said I could keep my pins, thank you, but, by the
time I got inside, I lost my place against the rail.}, it was an
unruly crowd, and people were getting hurt/crushed up front,
especially during Pocket Calculator.The absolute WORST part -(for me)- was when Florian gave his backstage
pass to this young skinny retro-40's style tatooed short wedge-cut
red-haired chick right in front of me at the end of Pocket
Calculator. -(She was up against the rail, I was wedged in right
behind her, and my arm wasn't long enough to out-reach her grasp. I
was talking to her and other nearby bodies before the gig- I can't
remember her name. 'Nothing against her personally, but, I wanna KILL
her. 'Just an expression. I do NOT mean to insult her. I'm sure she's
a perfectly good person and all. I'm just DYING of
ENVY/JEALOUSY.*ARGH*. She was after Fritz anyway. Most of the chicks
were.)- Also note: The girl in the CENTER with shoulder-length dark
hair & glasses screaming her head off at Fritz was NOT the girl that
Florian gave the pass to. -(See description
above.)- Fritz kept smiling at the center girl. I didn't see her at
the party afterwards. But, Florian clearly had his eye on this other
girl and gave her the pass. GOD, I WANNA DIE!! At the Warfield, I was
against the rail, in front of Florian, but, able to see the whole
stage and all 4 members. I got my hysterics out that night. It really
was overwhelming. But, I had ZERO energy the 2nd night. I couldn't
even move my hands up to applaud. I was that squeezed. It was AWFUL!!Yeah, sure, I met all four guys after the gig at Kontrol Faktory, and
yes it was KooL that they came to the after-party. They danced a
little and seemed to enjoy the MusiK. I spoke to each of them briefly.
I met Florian first because he arrived before the others- with his
d*te in tow. I spotted him and approached him simply & matter of
factly, made a brief comment about seeing both gigs. Then I joked with
him; "Was your Calculator WERKing okay tonight? I'm sorry, I did not
mean to short it out last night- I was standing too close." He just
laughed and took it in good humor. Then I told his d*te she was the
luckiest lady in the Universe and asked Florian: "Why is she so lucky?
Because 'she's a model and she's looking good'?" He just laughed and
shrugged some more. Then I matter-of-factly told him; "I hadn't slept
in 6 days, 'got $100 ripped-off in Frisco, and my plane was late
getting to Burbank. But, meeting you makes it all worthwhile. Macht
nichts." He just smiled and kinda shrugged again. -(He does that a
lot.)- Somewhere I also said "I've been into your MusiK for 20 years-
I love it!" Then I shook his hand again, said "take care" or whatever
and politely got out of his face. He stayed with his "d*te" for the
evening. KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL!!!!!!! -(Darn- I should've asked him
"Well, if YOU don't want me, can I have a date with your ROBOT
Doppelgänger?" I missed my chance to offer the ROBOTS a thorough
LubeJob.*sigh*. I thought of it too late.)- Part of me wants to die
because I'm not young/pretty/skinny enough to please Florian. But,
another part of me says: If he ain't man enough enough to handle a
REAL warm cuddly overly amorous woman close to his own age, t'HELL
with him. I'll just build my ROBOTS and be done with it. Sure, they
were all basically nice & polite to everyone who spoke to them, but,
it was too painful seeing Florian with his "choice", and the rest with
their equally young skinny dates.*ARGH*.Oh- KuTe note: When a small bunch of us were talking with Fritz,
someone brought up the names of the new tunes. Someone -(maybe it was
me)- said "Tribal?" Fritz said "Yeah, we just call it tribal." and I
mentioned the name "Nummwelt...." -(whatever)- and he looked at me all
wide-eyed: "How do you know that?" "On the InterNet." -(It was MY turn
to smile and shrug.)- A bit later I happened to stand next to Ralf at
the bar. He was chatting up TWO chicks. I thought I heard him or one
of the girls ask for a pen, so, I offered one in case he was signing
something for them- "Oh, it's okay, I have a pen, Thank you." "Okay,
sorry-" after a pause in their conversatioon I made the standard
comments about seeing both shows and how interesting it was to note
subtle differences- accoustics, etc. By this time I was over most of
my nervousness and didn't sound so "silly". Last of all I saw Henning
and said basically the same thing and went into a bit more detail
about the InterNet, Mail List, and meeting with other Fans all over
the world. Oh- I also told them about the nice bike trails we have up
here. Radtour im Rotwald! Fritz said something about having ridden
around SF earlier that day. I said it's like the Alps with all the
hills. More joviality.Fine, so they're nice guys when they want to be, but- it still tore my
heart out. I honestly thought they'd be less obviously shallow than
that. It must be "Mid-Life Crisis"- old men needing a young "trophy"
on their arm- and I'm not "good enough" for them OR their ROBOTS. God
it hurts!! I'm just gonna crowl away and die somewhere. -(Don't worry.
I'll find a way to pay everybody back first.)- Thanks again to
EVERYONE for helping me! Buses/trains are an extreme hassle! -(It
took me 4 hours to get back to my friend's house in Hollywood from
Longbeach. A black chick and a Mexican chick got in a fight on one of
the trains I was on. cripes. Just what I needed.)-Wednesday, JBV took me to the Airport and bought me a much-needed
drink. THANK YOU!! -(My 5pm flight was cancelled, but, I DID make it
on stand-by on the earlier plane. It WERKed out fine!)-An aside, but, something did happen to cheer me up. I made it to SF
around 8pm, no problem, dragged my duffle bag around, looked for
something to eat, and ended up in a pizza/bar joint. The lady at the
food counter asked me to stay for Karaoke in the back. Okay- the tail
end of the Bulls vs Utah was on while I ate, -(Bulls take Utah? 88 to
84, I think. It was a tight game, apparently.)-, then they set up the
Karaoke machinery. So, I picked "The Rose", "White Rabbit", and
"Nights in White Satin". Small crowd, but, they LOVED it. I couldn't
believe it. They wanted me to stay and sing some more but I had to
catch the Greyhound. Well, I had SOME fun anyway. 'Talked to some nice
folks on the ride home, and now I gotta TRY to get some rest. I'll
have to catch up on answering Email later. It's been a VERY stressful
trip. Agony/Ecstacy is a gross understatement.And that's the rest of the story. KW still RULES and always will- but,
do they HAVE be so damned BRUTAL about it? no fair. at. all.ROBOT@humboldt1.com
http://www.humboldt1.com/~robot/
ROBOT's Silly Sektor of CyberSpace
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 03:24:02 -0700
From: "d. c A r t o" <dcarto@geocities.com>
Subject: (kw) Warfield showBack home in the sticks at three in the morning after a wonderful show. The
first new song was very beautiful, the visuals were an ocilloscope, the
shapes of the sounds were exciting as the sounds themselves. I felt that
these songs could go on and on. Wished they did. The crowd was loving of
them. Is it a kind of revival? The second new song was great too. There
was a very powerful sound like a throttle - it was felt as such in the
audience... I brought a friend that had heard of Kraftwerk a whole two weeks
ago, he really enjoyed himself. Consensus from the people behind me that
these songs should be in the clubs. Where are they? It was a presentation
of, a future that was? Anyway I'm glad I got to see them. Like Robot I
have been waiting twenty years. In the 1980s I never thought I would be
seeing them so close to the year two thousand, and that one of the songs
would be autobahn. The new material sounds great, let's hear more.Michael
Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 03:39:10 -0700
From: Fred Becker <mach25@inow.com>
Subject: (kw) Warfield Report From FredKraftwerk Quakes SF! Look out USA!
The US tour is off to a great start. Here is my live report (home) from
the Warfield.I was in line early along with Robot, Christoff, JBV and new fans we met
from San Jose and elsewhere. We had time to chat and meet and that is when
I got fans to sign my Computer World LP cover. In all I got about 25 fan
signatures. I think this is a great idea for some others to try. If you
are really brave you can give it to Kraftwerk after the show. I wanted to
keep mine.We would occasionally walk to the side of the building to watch all the
equipment being loaded in and occasionally see the stage being set up. I
recognized the four robot cases. The steel scaffolding you might see is
used to hold the curtains and the interior sides of the stage. A big
orange mobile generator is used to produce the 230 Volts, 50 Hz, European
standard power for the computers. The semi-trailer used has a black cab
with a white trailer. Someone saw "KW" on the front of the truck! It
really is a KONVOY!A very loud security man at one point moved our line away from the building
as the hour approached, and we all laughed at his amazing loud voice. He
was funny.The first ones in line had a boom box and played Kraftwerk rare material
the whole time, which was great to hear.One couple came to buy tickets on the street. They were too high priced,
and we were very sorry to see them walk off. They were on the list. I
hope they got in somehow.So the doors opened and we all happily rushed in. I was impressed by the
interior of the Warfield. It is hugely elegant with gold carvings, ceiling
paintings. It is somewhat oval shaped, not rectangular in the back. Very
nice.I chose a spot right in front of the stage by Ralf's station.
I collected more fan signatures while waiting inside the Warfield.
I met a great fan named Guenther from Germany stationed here in the US in
New Mexico. He is not on the list, but is a great fan and serious
collector. I also met many others near me.Christoff stood in the center of the stage.
ROBOT stood in front of Florian's stage.
Finally the vocodor introduction began and Numbers began playing. The
curtains opened and 17 years of US fans without Kraftwerk were swept away.Kraftwerk walked to their stations in a very deliberate and dignified
fashion amid the wild cheering. I really liked the way they all sort of
"set" themselves as they stood at their stations and began moving to the
ongoing rhythm.I was amazed that the stage was laid out in the "L" shape again. Cool!
Our railing was about five feet in front of the base of the stage. I was
about fifteen feet from Ralf on stage.I was amazed at how I knew everything already
The set list was apparently just like Tokyo. I dropped all thought of
writing down each song as it came. I was too intent on the show. I didn't
have a recorder to bring, but I hope somebody else did. Larry Lacost (sp?)
who I met was next to me and took a lot of photos from our close up vantage
point.>From watching Kraftwerk, or at least Ralf, I felt like the whole thing is
just a toy to them, and they are like kids who have grown up but who still
like to play. They are preserving the curiosity of being a kid by their
songs.Do any of you remember how strange mannequins were when you were a kid?
How about trains, machines, traffic cones, radio towers, neon lights,
searchlights, etc... I think some of these songs come from that innocence
of seeing strange new things and not knowing what they are.When Computer World began I held up my LP with all the fan signatures on it
for Kraftwerk to see! I think they all saw it.Autobahn was a treat. They gave the engine a good four or five attempts at
the start before it kicked in. The tempo was nice and slow, closer to the
original version it seemed, though still retaining the Mix rhythm.Videos for Autobahn were great, as for all the songs.
It was great to hear Airwaves, Man Machine and Tour de France.
Again great videos on Tour de France.
The real drama came with Pocket Calculator, Radioactivity and the Robots.
Pocket Calculator is the only real good look at the band. Here the walk in
front of their stands and play through remote units, as you all know.
Well, Florian's was on the fritz. So we got to see some of their
personality as they reacted to that and decided what to do about it. Very
funny and the crowd was laughing and cheering about that while enjoying the
music too. Florian kind of seriously stabbed at it, shook it, yanked on
the cords and finally shrugged. He looked at the other band members and
they all laughed with him. Then Florian tossed it up and down in his hands
and acted like he would throw it to the crowd, swung it around a little and
then just tapped his feet. All real funny. Then Fritz Hilpert went to
Florian's station and changed something. Suddenly Florian could make come
noise. We all cheered. They all laughed. This went on and on. It
stopped making noise again, etc.Radioactivity was just an intense song. It is played very much like on The
Mix or the Kevorkian remix. One thing I wished was that Florian would
sings all those vocoded parts through a vocoder live. As it was, these
were stored vocal samples that were played or sequenced. But the bass was
just really booming on that one. I could see Fritz hitting some notes (or
pretending to) in this song. These were the main theme notes: da-da da
da-da-da da-da da-da "Radioactivity." See if this happens at your show.Then Robots played and then Robotronic, first just the keyboards and then
keyboards plus Robots. This was a visual treat with strobe lights flashing
in various syncopations while the Robots moved in synchronicity.At other times the lights at the base of the instruments behind the
stations would illuminate to correspond to the song: red for Man Machine,
green for Autobahn, red white and blue for Tour de France and so on.Here is the Tokyo play list, and I'm pretty sure it's the same that we saw:
>01. Numbers
>02. Computer World
>03. Home Computer
>04. The Man Machine
>05. Tour De France
>06. Autobahn
>07. The Model
>08. Air Waves (intro) - New Song 1
>09. Radioactivity
>10. Trans Europe Express
>11. Pocket Caluculator - DENTAKU
>12. The Robots
>13. New Song 2
>14. Music Non StopThe two new songs were quite good. I really liked the second one, which
had a high vibrational intense rhythm. You couldn't tap your feet to it,
only sort of shake yourself? Wow.At the end they came back on after The Robots with those reflective suits
made to look like 3-d graphics wire-maps. Great visuals also accompanied
this. Each member then took a solo and individually exited.The fans cheered as they left. The cheering sort of died down for a while
and then , as we realized it was really over and we had just seen a great
show, we just had to cheer some more. So the cheering continued for a good
ten to 15 minutes. Floor stomping. The works. The house lights were up
and everything. We just couldn't stop cheering as we wanted to welcome
Kraftwerk back to the US. They're here!Now a word of advice for all those seeking autographs. From what happened
here, not many were able to. I was waiting outside in a line, per
security, and then Fritz came out and began signing things. Everything was
fine. Suddenly Ralf walked by behind Fritz and the line broke up and
surrounded him. I don't think Ralf was really expecting that. Ralf was
happily signing things in this crowd when a stage worker called for
everyone to move out of the way--including Ralf. So he was then shuffled
off to his van along with Fritz and Henning. So my advice is to get all
the fans in the line to agree to stay in that line. Then ask the security
persons to please ask the band to sign things down that line. I'm sure
anyone wouldn't mind signing things along an orderly line on the way to
their car. It will take some real will power for all the fans to remain in
a line I'm sure! If they refuse to come to the line, at least it will not
be the fans' fault for being overzealous. Guenther, my collector friend,
has been around. He was right there for Ralf and got all three signatures
somehow on his copy of the luminous Neon Lights 12" cover. Now Florian had
gone out another entrance from the others, so at our venue there was really
no way for anyone to get all four autographs. I'm sure Guenther will get
Florian's when he goes to the LA show tomorrow. If at all possible, do
some talking with security to have them ask the band to come and sign your
goodies.It was great to be there for Kraftwerk history in the making.
Fred
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:39:19 -0700
From: llacost@juno.com (Larry R LaCost Jr.)
Subject: Re: (kw) Warfield Report From Fred>> Larry Lacost (sp?) who I met was next to me and took a lot of photos
from our close up vantage point.>>Got 'em!!!! And they are being developed as we speak.
>>When Computer World began I held up my LP with all the fan signatures
on it for Kraftwerk to see! I think they all saw it.>>Fred, Fritz saw it, nodded and smiled... a tip off of thanks to you, bud
;->
>>Autobahn was a treat. They gave the engine a good four or five
attempts at the start before it kicked in.>>That was hysterical. Time for a tune-up on the Benz ;->
>>The real drama came with Pocket Calculator, Radioactivity and the
Robots. Pocket Calculator is the only real good look at the band. Here
the walk in front of their stands and play through remote units, as you
all know. Well, Florian's was on the fritz. So we got to see some of
their personality as they reacted to that and decided what to do about
it. Very funny and the crowd was laughing and cheering about that whileenjoying the music too. Florian kind of seriously stabbed at it, shook
it, yanked on the cords and finally shrugged. He looked at the other
band members and they all laughed with him. Then Florian tossed it up
and down in his hands and acted like he would throw it to the crowd,
swung it around a little and then just tapped his feet. All real funny.
Then Fritz Hilpert went to Florian's station and changed something.
Suddenly Florian could make come noise. We all cheered. They all
laughed. This went on and on. It stopped making noise again, etc.>>A definite highlight!!! They had a great sense of humor, played it off
well, and the crowd loved it. That was my favorite part of the show...
and they smiled and had fun!One point which Fred may or may not have mentioned was that several
people from the press were there taking lots of pictures on their first
two complete tracks. I bought today's San Francisco Chronicle and the San
Jose Mercury and neither one had any articles or pictures of Kraftwerk.
Please be on the look out for theses articles... I'm unable to pick them
up being that my travels take me back to L.A. this morning in time to
wait in line for them at The Palladium in Hollywood.See you there!!!
Larry R. LaCost Jr.
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:29:54 -0700
From: atombee@instrumentality.com (Knox B.)
Subject: (kw) SF Concert ReviewA friend's take on the Kraftwerk show (posted to the IDM list):
Just got back from the Warfield, where I was wowed by the long
awaited return of Kraftwerk. The show started promptly, so if you're
going to one of the later shows, be sure to show up early. And no, there
was no opening act.The stage had 4 workstations arranged in a shallow V pointed at the
audience, with 2 men on either side. Ralf was on the right end, Florian
on the left. One of them has a shaved head now, I'm guessing Ralf, and
will refer to him as such for the rest of this review, even though I've
never been able to tell them apart, which is odd because one of them is
taller & has a bigger head, though I know I'm not the only one with this
difficulty. Florian had a headset mic. It was easy to see under & behind
the workstations, where there was a long arc of equipment consoles
stretching across the stage. At the top of these consoles were bright
white lights, at the bottom a rainbow strip of flourescent or cold
cathode lamps. A buddy tried to identify equipment - he spotted four
Kawai K-5000 synths, a Raveolution, and a DA-88, but there was a lot more.
We couldn't couldn't see what sort of control surface was on the
workstations; most of the motions I saw looked like slider pushing &
pulling, with some button punching and a little key playing.The show started with Numbers, large numbers flashing on the video
screens, I spent this track getting used to the sound, the venue, and the
realization that I was seeing & hearing Kraftwerk live. Next up was Home
Computer, which was fairly true to t he original, though the bass & drums
were kickin'. Then came The Man Machine, which mixed English & German
lyrics, which were shown in monochrome on the videos. Tour De France was
the song I most wanted to hear, and I wasn't disappointed. This was a
pretty straight version of the achingly beautiful original. Black & white
footage of an old tour de france was shown. Next I heard car sounds, and
I knew it was Autobahn, which was a faithful, albeit shortened version.
Vintage cars were shown, along with pictures of the Autobahn, and their
new Autobahn logo. Then came The Model, another old style version (though
when I say this, I mean that the drum programming hadn't been modernized
to sound like The Mix, even if the drum sounds were beefier). Vintage
black & white footage of fashion models was shown. Next came a radically
reworked version of Airwaves off of "Radioactivity". This was a fantastic
update of a song which I always felt could be better. Now it is. Great
job guys![insert from Knox - Airwaves was _so_ reworked that it was barely
recognizable. Clearly, the boys still have the knack for amazing rhythmic
and harmonic innovation.]Radioactivity was next, with updated lyrics to include
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and other nuclear disasters. It sounded
more like the version off The Mix. Finally came Trance Europe Express,
still a juggernaut. Yes, vintage trains filled the screens. With that,
the curtains closed,************* SPOILER *************
If you're going to a later show, do yourself a favor and exit this message
right now, ok? Otherwise page down...
The curtains opened to the lads, erm, old men standing in front of their
consoles holding remotes. Yes! It was Pocket Calculator. Unfortunately
Ralf had some problems with his, but he was a real trooper and made funny
gestures with it, swinging it around like Roger Daltrey wiith a mic, to
the delight of the crowd, until one of the others got it working again.
Then he jammed on it, to the further delite of the crowd. Then the
curtains closed, and there was again much applause. Then the curtains
opened again on a black light set, with everyone wearing suits with dayglo
yellow stripes and wraparound dayglo shades. They launched into a ravey
number which was new. I found this to be a little disappointing, because
even though it featured some nice tweaky modular sounding synth work,
overall it sounded like Kraftwerk following rather than leading. All my
musician friends were convinced that they let their hair down and
improvised a bit on this track. The curtains closed again, to much
applause, then opened again, to the video screens lowering, which revealed
The Robots! For me, this was the highlight. The lighting was fantastic,
lots of strobes & bottom lighting which made the robots seem to move more
than they actually did. This version was much like The Mix version, and
it was excellent. I wish the robots had stayed to perform more numbers.
Finally, the video screens raised up to cover the robots, the guys
returned to the stage, and began Music Non-Stop. Videos of the animated
graphics from Electric Cafe were shown, with the wireframes of the band
echoing the stripes on the band's suits. I could tell they were having
more technical problems, because there were things shown in the video that
weren't echoed in the music. One by one they left the stage, and I sensed
that this was the last song.Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this show, even if it was horribly retro for
me. At least all the songs were updated in one form or another. All the
black & white film footage just accentuated the retro feeling. And Ralf &
Florian looked old - that was really weird. At least Florian seemed to
loosen up & enjoy himself in a few places. I just wish they'd get up the
nerve to release some truly new material - it's been way too long.
Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 20:00:41 -0700
From: Bill <bgillam@pacbell.net>
Subject: (kw) San Francisco June 7th!I was thrilled to attend the show last evening. I even took my 16 year old son
who had as good a time as I!!!!! There were 3 encores and they played
for about 1 hour 55 minutes. Then after the lights came up NO ONE moved from
where they were for a good 10-15 minutes clapping and stomping for more.. even
when you could see the crew were starting the dismantling the crowd was still
craving more.We were about 8 feet from the stage which was just perfect... NICE
and LOUD just the way I like it! Anyone with a set list please... send
it on in! KILLER version of RADIOACTIVITY!!!!!The only problem is it leaves me wanting MORE MORE MORE!
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 02:20:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Shojo <rjs6@axe.humboldt.edu>
Subject: (kw) More on Warfield ShowIn no particular order, I'll add to the comments already made:
No opening act or DJ, just a semi-random KW-ish sequence playing for about
five minutes before the "heute abend" robot voice.They were only about five or ten minutes late in starting.
The pauses between the songs were very brief. 15-20 seconds.
They did not talk to or wave at the audience, though some people close up
probably got some subtle acknowledgements.Florian looked to be in a very sour mood. So when his pocket calculator
was misbehaving I expected him to run away and hide. It was a surprise to
see him start laughing and making silly robot-like gestures.Florian had the mysterious "black notebook". I could see that it was a
standard three-ring binder with white paper in it. He leafed through it at
odd intervals, so I'm stumped as to what it was. I know it was not a set
list since that was already on the computer. I know it wasn't lyrics. I
doubt it was program changes for the synths since that was undoubtedly
tied into the sequencers. My guess is it's probably the latest print-out
from some cycling mailing list he's on or maybe e-mail from the Spice
Girls. <insert KW list speculation here>The pocket calculators they used were all differnt from one another and
were definitely not little piano keyboards. They all had buttons and a
couple had knobs. I'm going with the previous guesses that the devices
trigger short sequences or alter the mix of sounds.I'll disagree with jbv and say that the videos were slightly different but
I don't think it was intentional. The screen over Ralf went to black and
white a couple of times, seemingly at random. THe screen over Florian
seemed to have the colors go slightly off during parts of Radioactivity.When the robots move, they are not all doing exactly the same thing. Th F
Florian robot's head was looking back and forth quite a bit.At the end of Autobahn, the blue and white autobahn logo was very briefly
shown with a diagonal red slash through it. Is Kraftwerk now saying they
are against the autobahn, traffic in general or are they saying they are
tired of performing Autobahn?I was close enough to recognize some equipment on stage. Below the two
central computer monitors was an Alesis and Tascam digital tape machines
(I don't know which models). I could see the counters going on all songs
except the new AIrwaves and the two new songs. It also seemed that all
four of the guys were more animated during the new songs, like the were
actually all playing instead of firing sequences off or mixing effects.The t-shirts are the same ones offered on that German web site with a
couple changes. Both the white and the black robot t-shirts are the same.
The blue Autobahn t-shirt is a cotton t-shirt rather than the polyester
cycling shirt. The last t-shirt is the graphic of the four guys in the
glowing grid suits that's on the KW web site with the KW web site address
at the top. The shirts were all preshrunk cotton and $25.00 each. Sizes L
and XL.I loved the show. The sound was very good, the songs were slightly to very
different from the album versions and the overall music, lights, video
theme worked well together.BY far, this show had the widest variety of people I'd ever seen at a
show It was amusing to hear the long-time KW fans and some obvious new KW
fans or maybe just some posers talking. Here's what I overheard in the
t-shirt line: Guy #1 "... yeah, but it they really weren't playing
anythin. IT was mostly sequenced or something." Guy#2 "MANNNN. It's
Kraftwerk. It's not about them playing! They are controlling." Guy#1 "Oh."
There's a good report from John Berge and Jim Cherry at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/3456/kraftwerk.html