OUT~FUCKING~STANDING !!!!!

topic posted Mon, April 26, 2004 - 5:21 PM by  reese
I would have written a review of the show last Saturday night (April 24th) in Montreal @ Metropolis ... but it was SO OUT~fucking~STANDING, that as a writer myself, I just couldn't find the right words to describe it ... all I can say is ...... WWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!

Everything from the sound quality to the visuals ... INCREDIBLE !!! I was FLOORED and it takes ALOT to impress me ...
I've seen a TON of old~timer bands try to make a come-back in the "right" direction but NEVER like THIS ~!~!~!~!~!~
They did some new tracks and new versions of their tracks that were FUCKING PHENOMINAL !!! as well as their all~time classics ... talk about magic memories !!! tracks I'd totally forgotten about ... WWWWWWWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~

I read this review the day of the show before going and I couldn't have said it better ... ENJOY !!!

~~~~~~~

Toronto show Review April 23rd 2004 -

Thirty years ago, Kraftwerk began teaching the world how to make electronic pop music. Since then, virtually every musician who has used synthesizers, turntables, vocoders, drum machines, keyboards or computers owes them at least a thank-you. Now, the inscrutable, witty and brilliant German quartet is back to teach everyone how to put on a show.

And thank heaven for that. The biggest problem with live electronic music is that there's almost nothing more boring than watching a guy on stage staring at a laptop, though few electronic musicians seem to care. The Kraftwerk geniuses blew that image away, however, as soon as they emerged from behind a curtain to the tune of The Man Machine.

First of all, there were four guys on stage, dressed identically in black suits and red shirts and staring at four identical laptops placed precisely in a line. Their mostly bald heads were lit dramatically to contrast with the brightly coloured projection on the screen behind them.

As they generously played nearly all their hits for the appreciative crowd -- with characteristic deadpan blankness and little movement apart from the odd leg swinging to the beat -- the projections changed. Sometimes they were blocks of intense colour, or just the shadows of the four man-machines at their stations. Sometimes there were mesmerizing views of oscillating waves or snappy animated graphics, as in Pocket Calculator and Computer World.

Other backdrops reflected the songs' subjects more literally, like vintage footage from the famous cycling race to accompany the 1983 single Tour De France as well as last year's revisitation, Tour De France Soundtracks, or shots of '50s models for The Model, highway footage for Autobahn, trains for Trans Europe Express and gorgeously cascading capsules for Vitamin. But whether they were retro or futuristic, they were often witty and always dazzling.

When the curtain opened for the encore, there were four robots positioned in the band members' places, with metal stilts holding them up, disturbingly real-looking heads and arms that moved up and down. Naturally, that was for The Robots, one of the band's most enduring songs.

But that wasn't all -- the next encore presented them in crazy suits criss-crossed with day-glo green stripes that played dizzyingly against the undulating green stripes on the screen behind them. After Elektro Kardiogram and their newest single, Aero Dynamik, the members left the stage one by one as the final tune, the appropriately titled Music Non Stop, was fading out. It was a fitting end to a spectacular show.

~~~~~~~~

DO NOT MISS THIS GIG !!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by:
reese
Canada
  • Re: OUT~FUCKING~STANDING !!!!!

    Tue, April 27, 2004 - 10:47 AM
    Ditto!!!

    The Seattle show was last night & it was everyting described above. Hurrah for the grandfathers of OOnce OOnce!

    So...there was a phenomenon last night that I have never seen before...it's possible that it's an old thing & I'm just out of touch but I'd like to know if I have the bragging rights to say I was there the first time it happened and it was at Kraftwerk:

    Durring the encore applause & screaming before the robots, people started holding up their cell phones with lights on like we used to do with lighters. It spread through the whole theater and soon almost everyone was waving their lighted cells in the air. It was a very interesting sign of the times & quite apropriate for the show. There was one guy with a lighter...we called him old skool.

    Anyone else ever seen this?
    • Re: OUT~FUCKING~STANDING !!!!!

      Fri, April 30, 2004 - 5:17 PM
      Some interesting things about the Seattle show (4/26) vs the SF show (4/28):
      -- The Seattle show had some technical difficulties - a bit of mic feedback here and there, but most notably the "Robots" performance, which was delayed for at least 10 minutes (which is where eveyone raised their electronics, like Willow said), and then when the curtain raised, there was no sound for about 30 seconds... the robots did their tai chi, the visuals were going, but it was eerily silent (I found it ironic that the graphic behind them said "WE'RE FUNCTIONING AUTO-MATIC" while the sound WASN'T functioning!) When the sound popped on, it was only from the stage monitors - which was far inferior in sound quality. When the last set began (in the green-grid suits), the sound was back to normal.
      -- A bit too loud... The sound was great, but there were some distinct eardrum-buzz moments that made me wince in pain.
      ++ The Paramount stage was much bigger than the Warfield (which made the visuals bigger as well).
      ++ The sound quality overall was absolutely amazing - it was so crisp and crunchy... that's also what made it just a bit too loud. The high notes and extreme low bass were really at the ends of the spectrum - and at that volume, were just a bit on the painful side.

      ++ At the Warfield show, there were no technical difficulties, everything ran like clockwork (klokwerk?)
      ++ The crowd was a bit more active and participatory
      ++ The band was a bit more animated (loved it when the guy on the right started doing a little body shimmy to one of the songs), the crowd screamed as if he were Dieter
      -- BUT.... the stage was fuckin TINY
      -- and the sound quality SUCKED in comparison. The sound quality at the Warfield was the sound quality of the stage monitors at the Paramount during the Robot dance. I'm not sure if that's more the fault of a crappy system at the Warfield, or an exceedingly GREAT sound system at the Paramount.

      2 great concerts though... first time I've ever been to 2 different shows from a band on the same tour. No regrets at all.

      Musique.......


      ......non-stop...............

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